Role of Supply Chain Agility on Service Delivery in Humanitarian-Related Transport Operations: A Queuing Model Approach

Abstract

The objective of this study was to examine the role of supply chain agility on service delivery in humanitarian-based transport operations using the queuing model approach. The study was conducted at Tanzania Port Authority (TPA) as a busiest port serving about 90% of the international sea trade. The study utilized secondary data that were obtained from official database of TPA, World Bank and National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The study adopted simulation-based data under the M/M/1 queuing model and used the Poisson distribution to determine the customer's arrival rate while the exponential distribution was used to determine the service waiting time. RStudio programming software was used to analyze data and give output results. The results indicate that the mean arrival rate is 0.75; traffic intensity is 0.75; the probability of customers in the queuing system is 0.25; and the average amount spent in line is 0.75. The Poisson distribution indicated that the probability of service delivery reached the highest at 3 customers per minute while the Interval Exponential Distribution indicated that when inter-arrival time went longer, the probability also went lower. The study concluded that supply chain agility increases service delivery in performing humanitarian operations. The study has presented a new and original approach in linking these ideas in supply chain perspective in Tanzania. The results from this study imply that agility in supply chain enhances responsiveness in service delivery of humanitarian-related products.