Warehouse management and supply coordination by Albert Barceló and Joan Clavé

WAREHOUSE MANAGEMENT AND SUPPLY COORDINATION

Is the library a warehouse? Examples of logistics in case of natural disasters and logistics in healthcare

To answer the question if a library is considered a warehouse, firstly we need to define exactly what is known as warehouse. Is a “a large building where raw materials or manufactured goods may be stored prior to their distribution for sale”. In the narrower sense of this definition we won’t consider a library a warehouse because in the library you also sell directly to the costumer whereas in a warehouse you just store things without distributing them.

About the second part of the topic, logistics in natural disasters and in healthcare, logistics take an essential roll. Assuming that natural disasters are part of our life and any human can stop the strength of the nature, is very important to have logistic plans to minimize their impact and their posterior damage. Areas such as New Zealand, Japan or USA, countries with high probabilities to have  earthquakes, tsunamis and tornadoes, have their own logistic emergency plan to act correctly before and after the disaster.

In the past years there were 2 main disasters that were completely devastating, which maybe with a useful logistic plan, the impact would be less. Those two cases are the Indian Ocean “Boxing Day” Tsunami of 2004 and the Haiti 2010 Earthquake.  The Indian tsunami was the result of a 9.1 magnitude earthquake and was responsible for more than 227,000 deaths, more than 500,000 injured, over 2 million missing, and more than 1.5 million displaced persons across more than 12 countries. While in Haiti, the earthquake measured 7.0 in magnitude on the Richter scale, resulting in more than 200,000 dead. Experts on this field say that establishing a logistic plan can reduce the impact in other geographic areas near the disaster, saving more lives and make the communication and cooperation with other countries easier to help them after the disaster.

Nowadays, healthcare industry needs to adapt its budget reduction due to financial crisis and also give its best answer to all the patients problems. So that, it requires a very efficient logistics management. Resources decrease but illness keep in the same level. Hospitals have to administrate its rooms, doctors and medicines available to provide and to heal all the patients trying to avoid idle hours and spaces.