Humanitarian supply chain operations and COVID-19: the roles of data-driven innovations

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed a poor level of preparedness by the manufacturing sector in building resilient smart operations and logistics framework to respond to severe global supply chain disruptions. This research focuses on the effectiveness of data-driven innovation strategies in mitigating the impacts on humanitarian operations of Covid-19 related supply chain interruptions. It is supported by the outcome of a comprehensive overview of the major conceptual issues in the literature. This review uncovered two main topics of debate notably (i) the significant role of big data analytics and Artificial Intelligence in boosting firm performance by untangling supply chain disruptions and (ii) the paucity of research in this emerging area of literature. Consequently, this paper proposes a conceptual model for humanitarian supply chain operations to highlight how big data analytics and AI technologies could be deployed by firms to gain a competitive advantage by responding promptly and effectively to severe disruptions akin to those experienced during the recent COVID-19 pandemic. The critical functions of the model indicate that a swift and competent application of big data analytics and AI technologies improve resiliency, visibility, and responsiveness within supply chain networks, which in turn strengthens the coordination among major stakeholders.