Logistics performance management in action within a humanitarian organization

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to share the design and testing procedure of the “Development Indicator Tool” – a tool developed by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to guide and monitor the continuous performance improvement of their (regional) logistics unit(s) on a daily basis.Design/methodology/approach – The paper follows a descriptive approach. It starts with a description of the situational background of the IFRC. In a second step, it briefly portrays the theoretical concepts of continuous improvement and of the Balanced Scorecard and highlights the extension of existing literature on performance measurement in general and humanitarian logistics in particular. Next the paper summarizes the objectives of the tool and describes the four development phases as well as the tool design including the dashboard and the selected indicators. It concludes with indications on key success factors, challenges met along the way, expected impact and the future persp...