Non-profit organizations play an important part in disaster relief, often by evacuating affected populations and delivering relief supplies. Existing research has demonstrated techniques to improve disaster relief chains' structures using established evaluation criteria. However, little research has considered the sociotechnical characteristics associated with humanitarian supply chains. The purpose of this paper is to investigate non-profit organizations' disaster relief chains, identify the unit operations that might lead to system failure, and improve the relief chains from a macroergonomics perspective. In this paper, the ten-step Macroergonomic Analysis and Design (MEAD) methodology was used to evaluate a disaster relief supply chain of a non-profit relief agency. The analysis was done on a large relief organization by conducting in-depth interviews with organization's leaders. In the interviews, open-ended questions were asked about cargo transportation, evacuation, transportation operation units, transportation mode selection, and the overall relief chain process. Based on the interview results a conceptual model of the relief chain was developed and a redesigned operations plan was formulated.
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