in my case I added the following line in my terminal:
export PATH="/Users/Username/Library/Android/sdk/platform-tools":$PATH
make sure that you replace "username" with YOUR user name.
hit enter then type 'adb' to see if the error is gone. if it is, this is what you should see:
Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.40
...followed by a bunch of commands..and ending with this:
$ADB_TRACE
comma-separated list of debug info to log:
all,adb,sockets,packets,rwx,usb,sync,sysdeps,transport,jdwp
$ADB_VENDOR_KEYS colon-separated list of keys (files or directories)
$ANDROID_SERIAL serial number to connect to (see -s)
$ANDROID_LOG_TAGS tags to be used by logcat (see logcat --help)
if you get that, run npm run android again and it should work..