Management summary
Disasters can happen all over the world. There are two types of disasters: Man-made
disasters and Natural disasters. Natural disasters are mostly unforeseen and can
have devastating effects on the environment. This kind of disaster will be analyzed in
this thesis because these are the most difficult to handle for emergency relief
organizations and require a clear structure in organizations. These types of situations
are difficult to control, but when disaster strikes it is important to get immediate aid on
the spot. Emergency relief organizations attempt to be in the right place at the right
time. But are these organizations learning from the past so that they can handle more
responsively in the future? The Deming cycle is the perfect tool to find out whether
there is a learning cycle or not. The Deming cycle is also known as the Plan-Do-
Check-Act (PDCA) cycle. The PDCA cycle is an instrument for continuous
improvement to achieve and maintain a high quality. (Deming, 2007)
To find out whether there is a learning cycle or not, the following problem statement
has been formulated:
To what extent do disaster relief activities of the Military and the Red Cross follow the
Deming cycle?
In this thesis two major organizations will be analyzed in terms of their compliance
with the Deming cycle, namely the U.S. Military and the Red Cross. This will result in
a comprehensive comparison of their emergency relief approaches. Each stage of
the Deming cycle, Plan-Do-Check-Act, will be analyzed on their appearance in the
organizations.
Plan: The Military does not take any preparations with relation to natural disasters
and is a government institution. The Red Cross has to do all the preparation by itself
with the help of volunteers and funded by donors.
Do: The difference between the U.S. Military and the Red Cross is that a military
base is always nearby the disaster area. This makes it easier for the military to
coordinate the people-logistics and material-logistics at the right place in a short
timeframe. The Red Cross has only three bases from which operations are
coordinated. This makes the emergency relief not immediately efficient. Because
people management has to wait for the people to arrive at the site.
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Check: The Military does not learn much from its mistakes because of the
management changing time over time and with this the knowledge is also changing
time over time (Weeks, 2007). The Red Cross learns a lot of done emergency relief
operations and makes a document of all the lessons learned in the emergency relief
operation.
Act: The future strategy of the Military and the Red Cross is quite different. The
Military is more into armed combat-mentality (Kuban, 2006) and the Red Cross is
only into rescue/prevent people from disasters and diseases.
With the comparisons given above, the answer to the problem statement can be
given. When we look at the Deming cycle and the approach of the Military we can
see that there is not a lot of consensus between them. The Military only does the Do
part of the Deming cycle in relation with the approach emergency relief. The rest is
done