Abstract: Logistics activities are of high importance for the success of a humanitarian operation and can be responsible for up to 80% of its costs. Vendor Managed Inventory, a concept successfully applied in commercial logistics, might be a possibility to enhance the effectiveness of humanitarian logistics operations. However, there is a lack of an appropriate assessment of the VMI applicability for a humanitarian organization. We propose an adjusted VMI Readiness Score for humanitarian organizations, a tool adapted from a commercial context for the specific requirements of humanitarian scenarios, to gain a general impression of the suitability of VMI. The tool is applied exemplary to the IFRC and the result indicates that it is worthwhile to further investigate the applicability of VMI for humanitarian organizations.
