Supply Chain Solutions

An Innovative and Holistic Approach to Supply Chain Management

DAI’s comprehensive approach to supply chain management works with local partners to build their capacity to tackle supply chain challenges in the following areas:

• Quantification, Forecasting, and Supply Planning
• Procurement
• Warehousing and Inventory Management
• Distribution and Transportation, including Last Mile Delivery
• Data Management
• Workforce Development and Institutional Capacity Building
• Pharmaceutical Management
• Financing
• Private Sector Outsourcing

Having worked with public and private clients in almost 100 countries, DAI is uniquely positioned to identify innovations that work and adapt them to new contexts, geographies, and sectors. As a trusted partner to governments, private companies, and donors alike, DAI brings together networks, relationships, experience, and expertise to support the integrated, collaborative approach needed to sustainably strengthen critical supply chains.

Whether using proprietary software to identify local suppliers for international trading partners in Guyana, helping businesses adapt to logistics bottlenecks in Afghanistan, or supporting a Logistics Management and Information System for medical supplies in Haiti, we develop sustainable solutions in partnership with local stakeholders. We document and apply our successes and learning to build supply chain resiliency, flexibility, and responsiveness.

For information on how DAI can help address supply chain challenges, contact Kim Shelsby.

Global Health Solutions

For 20 years, DAI has made lasting differences in the global health arena by partnering with stakeholders to apply contextually appropriate, multisectoral approaches that improve health outcomes. Today, DAI’s global health team provides technical assistance on donor projects and directly with governments and the private sector to improve access to health commodities and strengthen pharmaceutical management systems.

DAI makes practical, enduring contributions to increase access to medical supplies and prevent corruption in the health sector. Our Promoting Governance, Accountability, Transparency and Integrity project in Bangladesh, for example, used a community scorecard in district health facilities to track the availability of medicines, monitor service quality, generate performance criteria for budget allocations, and strengthen citizen voice and community oversight. The scorecard—used in Bangladesh to this day—helped reduce drug stock-outs across district facilities.

We also support national governments to build more self-reliant systems that are prepared to respond to emergencies and shocks. For example, DAI’s Fleming Fund Country Grants in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Pakistan support private lab networks, health service providers, pharmacies, and policymakers to build laboratory capacity and infrastructure to address antimicrobial resistance and antimicrobial use (AMR/AMU). We ensure that laboratories are equipped with tools and trained personnel to provide effective AMR/AMU surveillance.

In addition, DAI works with public and private stakeholders to strengthen country pharmaceutical management systems. For example, DAI’s Palestinian Enterprise Development project improved interactions between pharma companies and the Ministry of Health, bringing them together to agree on the ministry’s Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) manual. DAI helped ensure that these companies were supported through a GMP inspection to increase their competitiveness.

Similarly, through the Jordan Competitiveness Program, DAI developed a partnership between the Jordan Food and Drug Administration and the Jordan Association of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers to streamline the drug registration process. By automatizing and digitizing the process, the program enabled drugs to enter the market faster, thereby strengthening the sector and boosting economic growth; each new drug creates 16 jobs and $1 million in sales revenue.

Private Sector Solutions

COVID-related supply chain disruptions have laid bare the need for more agility, creativity, and preparedness in global supply chains. DAI helps the private sector meet these imperatives by improving its forecasting, planning, and procurement, in part by means of proprietary tools that broaden suppliers’ markets and improve their procurement options:

• The Supplier Management Portal (SMP) is a cloud-based platform that connects large-scale buyers to local micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). Multinationals gain access to new markets and thousands of verified local suppliers, and can measure and report on their impact on the local economy. In turn, MSMEs gain access to business opportunities with large-scale buyers.

• The SMP Reporting Package enables operators, regulators, and suppliers to plan and report on their impacts on the local economy. Users can seamlessly track local content categories including procurement, workforce, capacity development and investments. The tool has been built to be configurable to relevant local content legislation, regulation and policy. It has been deployed and configured to requirements in a variety of local content regulatory environments including, Kazakhstan, Mexico, and Sierra Leone, where it is used by multinationals, suppliers, and government authorities.

• The Local Content Optimization Model (LCOM) takes data from our clients’ spending for large capital projects and maps it to enterprise competitiveness survey data to forecast local content at the category level. We use these forecasts to develop procurement and contracting strategies that optimize use of the local supply base. We also provide recommendations on where our clients can invest—as part of their supply chain strengthening and corporate social responsibility strategies—to help local suppliers build their capacity. DAI has deployed the LCOM solution for multinational corporation clients all over the world, including in Canada, Guyana, Mauritania, Mexico, Mozambique, Oman, Senegal, Suriname, and Vietnam.

• The Local Content Masterclass, a three-day training accredited by the British Accreditation Council, enables companies, contractors, and regulators to design and manage local content in the supply chain while maximizing benefits and minimizing risk. The Masterclass is delivered annually in the United Kingdom and the United States, and can be customized to country or client contexts as desired.

Learn more about our solutions for the private sector.

DAI also facilitates private sector engagement on national supply chain issues. We draw on our long-established relationship with the private sector to raise resources, support dialogue with government, and resolve transportation, distribution, and storage challenges.

For example, on INVEST, we are supporting Italy’s COVID-19 response by providing catalytic funding and technical assistance to leverage private investment for Italian manufacturers and medical suppliers. This has helped increase the production and distribution of personal protective equipment, and address market access and production bottlenecks. We are also assisting Italian factories and supply chains in adapting to the needs of the country’s healthcare system.

Humanitarian Solutions for Conflict Countries

DAI works in fragile and conflict-affected countries, including Afghanistan, Burma, Haiti, Liberia, and Somalia, where instability adds to the difficulty of maintaining efficient supply chains. We rely on our strong local relationships and continually updated political and economic analyses to provide rapid, flexible support that responds to changing security needs, host-country government imperatives, donor priorities, and operational restrictions.

For example, the Afghanistan Competitiveness of Export-Oriented Businesses Activity (ACEBA) is working to improve end-to-end connectivity for maternal and child health (MNCH) services and in turn, demand for MNCH health products in Afghanistan. Through ACEBA, DAI collaborates with AlemHealth to bring an innovative telehealth approach reaching 20,000 patients, mostly women and children for life-saving services. This digital transformation has built in resilience against shocks and helped better reach the last mile for health products and services, despite disruptions.

In Haiti—a country with a history of devastating earthquakes, hurricanes, and contagious disease, including the 2010 cholera outbreak—our Haiti Strategic Health Information System project contributed to the development of a nationally harmonized Logistics Management and Information System (LMIS) to track supply chain data on essential drugs and laboratory inputs, including their purchasing, storage, and distribution. The system helps make medicines available and accessible to Haiti’s entire population.