Location: any MSF office*

Contract: fixed-term

Duration: 6 months

Starting date: May 2024

Deadline to Apply : March,15th 2024

 

*By default, the successful candidate will be offered a contract in the MSF office of their country of residence at the time of application.

 

I. MSF INTERNATIONAL

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international, independent, medical humanitarian organization that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, healthcare exclusion and natural disasters. MSF offers assistance to people based only on need and irrespective of race, religion, gender or political affiliation.

MSF International is the legal entity that binds together MSF’s 26 Institutional Members of which 24 sections, and other offices such as Branch Offices and Satellites. MSF International provides coordination, information, and support to the MSF movement, and implements international projects and initiatives as requested.
Within MSF International, the International Office (IO) is the Secretariat of MSF International Board and is under the direct management of the Secretary General.

 

II. POSITION BACKGROUND

SPINCO is the driver for effective collaboration across the movement to deliver a central source of trusted product information that enables continuous process improvements.

The position of the Spinco Construction and Shelter officer is a temporary position at Spinco, to support the process of the clean-up and description of the construction and shelter-related articles in UniData (IT database). The foreseen workload is for 6 months.

 

III. PLACE IN THE ORGANISATION

• The person reports to the Spinco Logistics referent who has a functional line to the International Logistics Coordinator.
• The person will be interacting with the Spinco team, among which the Spinco Logistics Data Steward, the international Construction and Shelter working group members (iTWG) and possibly the different European Supply Centre (ESC) data owners.

 

IV. OBJECTIVES OF THE POSITION

In May 2016 the organization-wide article master database UniData went live. With that, the logistical product database needed to be cleaned up, and codification rules for codes and labels were determined.

Spinco is responsible for the creation and description of the codification rules as well as the application of those rules to have a cleaned-up database of standard and non-standard articles.

The current volume of articles related to construction and shelter in the master data is more than 2000 articles.

The objective of this position is to have valid and updated article descriptions, and clarity on standards for construction and shelter articles.

 

V. MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES

1. Improve codification rules for groups of construction and shelter-related articles

• Familiarize with the existing code and label writing rules.
• Review the proposed set of rules for codification. Propose if needed enhancement on rules to improve the final result. Set up new draft rules for missing groups of articles and clean up existing group of articles.
• Enter these rules in UniData including related label blocks in the code & label generator.
• Apply these rules to articles (outside Unidata, i.e. in Excel), prioritizing standard articles.
• Apply the label writing rules to these articles in English and French.
• Share the proposed new codes and labels with the iWG and the ESC specialist for review before adapting them in UniData.
• Make sure codes and labels of construction and related- articles correspond with those in the attached descriptions of these articles.

2. Write descriptions for Construction and shelter-related articles

• Familiarize with the existing descriptions and the guidelines for writing them.

• Review the existing valid descriptions and propose improvements (based on priorities).
• Review existing draft descriptions and edit them, if necessary.
• Create new descriptions for articles that don’t have them yet, prioritizing (standard) articles that were identified as needing a description.
• Collaborate on these tasks with members of the Construction and shelter iTWG or ESC data owners to complete the validation of these descriptions in UniData.
• Follow-up on questions and feedback related to descriptions for construction and shelter-related articles.
• Add relevant information that doesn’t fit or belong in the label in the description.
• Enter relations between articles in UniData.

3. Contribute to the clean-up process / outdating & archiving of articles

• Participate in discussions related to the clean-up process of construction and shelter-related articles.
• Follow up on outstanding feedback remarks in UniData.
• Follow up on data quality checks and make the necessary changes in UniData.
• Follow up of other tasks requested by the Spinco Logistical Data Steward and/or the Codification Project Coordinator.

4. Contribute to improve standardization.

• Propose a clear and coherent set of standards articles and kits, corresponding to shelter, semi-permanent and construction family.
• Propose to archive outdated standards article.

5. Contribute to propose new articles.

• Propose adding items that could be missing, and that are related, to the construction and shelter technical family.

6. Propose clearer boundaries between working group portfolios

• Review articles that are not within scope but have a direct impact on construction; i.e.: Water and Sanitation items such as plumbing faucets (tabs, activation system for tabs), sinks etc…

• Identify articles that are in several families; i.e.: cutters (depending on their end purpose)
• Advise on best practices for later implementation by Spinco (in consultation with related working groups).