Purpose
To develop and test three different inventory management strategies as applied to the complex emergency in south Sudan.
Design/methodology/approach
Quantitative modeling, simulation, and statistics.
Findings
This research identified critical system factors that contributed most significantly to inventory system performance, and identified strengths and weaknesses of each inventory management strategy.
Research limitations/implications
This research represents a first step in developing inventory management systems for humanitarian relief. Future work would include modeling correlation among relief items, multiple items, and considering the impact of information.
Practical implications
In a domain that has seen limited application of quantitative models, this work demonstrates the performance benefits of using quantitative methods to manage inventory in a relief setting.
Originality/value
This research has value for relief organizations by providing a real‐world application of quantitative inventory management strategies applied to a complex emergency, and demonstrated performance advantages of quantitative versus ad hoc methods. This research has value for researchers by providing a new application of simulation and mathematical modeling (humanitarian relief).