By Peter Panepento

Washington

The American Red Cross is creating a new communications system to help it coordinate disaster-relief efforts with a key business organization. The goal is to avoid some of the logistical snafus that plagued the charity during its response to Hurricane Katrina.

The new system would allow the Red Cross to quarterback the flow of supplies and goods donated by companies that are part of the Business Roundtable — an association of chief executive officers from more than 170 companies that collectively generate $4.5-trillion in annual revenue and employ more than 10 million people.

The system would give member companies a way to provide on-the-ground reports from a disaster site to the Red Cross to help it deploy goods and services to those most affected by disasters.

The arrangement, which was announced at the Red Cross’s headquarters building here in Washington, also includes a new program to train employees of companies that participate in the Business Roundtable how to volunteer with the Red Cross during disasters and an effort to help employees prepare their families for crises.

The volunteer training programs will be coordinated by local Red Cross chapters in the home cities of the participating companies and would be paid for by the Red Cross.

The potential scope of the project is large. The Business Roundtable’s members provided more than $362-million in money, supplies, and other resources during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

But the deployment of those resources following that disaster was far from efficient, said Harold McGraw III, the Business Roundtable’s chairman and chief executive officer of the McGraw-Hill Companies, in New York.

The relationship between the Business Roundtable and the Red Cross is designed to make sure supplies and other goods are more effectively managed.

“To have all of these capabilities and not to be able to tap into them during a time of disaster is tragic,” Mr. McGraw said.

The key to fixing that problem, said Mr. McGraw, is doing the advance work necessary to head off confusion during a time of chaos and to create a system that will allow leaders to communicate effectively during crises.

That system, which is still under development, will monitor the flow of supplies coming in from Business Roundtable companies and will match that data with areas of need. The Red Cross would also be able to communicate with the companies to let them know where it faces shortfalls — and where it has a surplus.

Mark W. Everson, the Red Cross’s chief executive, said the organization plans to set up a similar communications network for nonprofit groups that need to coordinate efforts during crises. The Red Cross mounted the largest disaster crisis in its history during Hurricane Katrina, but it was criticized for failing to properly help many of the local nonprofit and religious organizations that rushed to Louisiana and Mississippi to help victims.