Main Responsibilities of a Supply Chain Coordinator at International Rescue Committee
As a Supply Chain Coordinator at International Rescue Committee, the role is akin to being an "orchestra" conductor, focusing on streamlining collaboration and balancing supply and demand. This involves managing upstream relationships with donors and vendors, optimizing procurement processes, ensuring quality and fair payment terms, efficient inventory management, and ultimately understanding and meeting the critical needs of refugees and people in crisis, acknowledging the trade-offs necessary to allocate resources effectively.
Supply Chain Management, Logistics, Nonprofit Sector, Resource Allocation, Stakeholder Collaboration
Advizer Information
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Dustin Weil
Supply Chain Coordinator
International Rescue Committee
University of Minnesota
Arizona State University (ASU) - W. P. Carey
Humanities
Manufacturing, Operations & Supply Chain, Nonprofit, Foundations & Grantmaking
Operations and Project Management
Scholarship Recipient
Video Highlights
1. The role of a supply chain coordinator is like a conductor of an orchestra, focusing on streamlining processes and facilitating collaboration among team members and stakeholders.
2. Supply chain management involves understanding both supply and demand, balancing them effectively, and managing relationships with upstream partners like donors and vendors.
3. In the nonprofit sector, particularly when serving refugees and people in crisis, meeting customer demand is critical and can be a matter of life and death, requiring careful consideration of trade-offs and cross-functional collaboration.
Transcript
What are your main responsibilities within your role as a supply chain coordinator?
I think one way that I can explain this to people who are not already familiar with the work is that it's a lot like being a conductor of an orchestra. My job is not to do all of the tasks or make all of the decisions, but really to try to streamline things and help different team members and stakeholders collaborate effectively. This way, collectively, we can do what needs to be done.
In the context of supply chain management, that means first understanding supply and demand. Then, it's about structuring activities and marshaling resources to balance supply and demand effectively. I would say it's as much an art as it is a science.
Some of the roles and subtasks involved include going from upstream to downstream in supply chain terms. This means understanding what resources are available and what sources might be available. In the nonprofit sector, we purchase things, but we also work with donors, vendors, and other organizations that can complement our work.
We have to manage relationships with upstream partners who provide things for us. I'm focusing mainly on the material goods that move through our supply chain and that we distribute to clients, though services are also very important.
After establishing those relationships and understanding the procurement context, we need a strategy to optimize procurement while mitigating risks. Then, we must have good purchasing and receiving processes. We have many guidelines to comply with to ensure everything is done properly, that we receive quality goods, and that payment terms are fair.
When we receive goods, we put them in inventory. Sometimes, we orchestrate direct shipments that bypass inventory and go directly downstream to a client or customer. In terms of inventory management, we must be efficient with resources, including space. We try to keep things moving quickly and avoid having a lot of inventory sitting around.
Most importantly, on the downstream side of our supply chain, it's about understanding and meeting our customer's demand. Since I work in a nonprofit serving refugees and people in crisis zones, you can imagine their needs are acute. Meeting their needs effectively can literally be a matter of life and death.
So, it's really important that we focus on that and get it right. There are many trade-offs to consider. Putting more resources into one kind of good or service provision is often at the expense of something else. This is very cross-functional. We need to talk with different team members and stakeholders to understand what is valuable and critical from the perspective of the consumers we are serving.