Identifying key skill sets in humanitarian logistics: Developing a model for Sri Lanka

Abstract

Previous research has shown that Logistic skills are a basic requirement for employment and career development within the Humanitarian Logistics (HL) field. These skills requirements are changing in various logistics functions, groups and cultures. At the same time increasing global disasters are adding to the challenges that are adversely affecting the HL supply chain. Skills of the logisticians are therefore a necessity to effectively manage the supply chain in a disaster. It is vital to research in to the area of HL, considering the recent issues that are being faced after every disaster in Sri Lanka. A number of researches have been carried out in finding skills of the humanitarian logisticians at global level. However, as to date there has been limited discussion on the skills of humanitarian logisticians in the Sri Lankan humanitarian field. In this research a Factor Analysis (FA) was conducted in order to find the skills of humanitarian logisticians in Sri Lanka. Skills which were identified earlier by researchers were further tested in order to find the applicability in the local HL landscape. We have identified deferent set of component than in the previous studies. Results will assist the training and recruiting humanitarian logisticians. Additionally, this paper also indicates future research requirements to the field of HL.