Supply chain for the humanitarian aid - CALL 2017

This project, led by the Digital Business Center in collaboration with HEdS-FR, HEIA-FR and partners in Lebanon, aimed at overcoming the difficulties faced by NGOs and governments in managing health equipment in crisis situations: the visibility of stocks and consumption at the end of the chain.

Lebanon underwent a humanitarian crisis due to the massive immigration of Syrian refugees cause by the ongoing conflict in that county. Satisfying the demand for medicaments in such conditions easily shows the limit of the current supply chain. This project, led by the Digital Business Center of the HEG-FR, and in collaboration with HEdS-FR, HEIA-FR and partners in Lebanon, aimed at overcoming the difficulties faced by NGOs and governments in managing health equipment in crisis situations: the visibility of stocks and consumption at the end of the chain.

The project designed and developed a health equipment inventory management system thought to support the humanitarian crisis related to the Syrian refugees in Lebanon. To encourage companies and start-ups to re-use and develop services adapted to local needs, the mobile and cloud system was made accessible in an open source repository. The system is based on the use of smartphones for managing goods using bar codes as well as using geolocation information from the telephones' GPS applications. It has already been tested in a pilot study in collaboration with the ICRC Weapon Trauma and Training Centre in Tripoli, Lebanon.

This project is funded by Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation, and University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland (HES-SO) through the "Entrepreneuriat et technologies appropriées (E&TA)".