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Part - IV

• Testing/grading operations
  The location of the test and grade operations in the network has an important impact on the flow of goods. It is only after this stage that individual products can be assigned to an appropriate recovery option and hence to a geographical destination. It is important to see a tradeoff between transportation and investment costs at this stage. Testing collected products early in the channel may minimize total transportation distance since graded products can directly be sent to the corresponding recovery operation. On the other hand, expensive test equipment and the need for skilled labor act as drivers for centralizing the test and grade operations.

• Reprocessing
  The reprocessing generally requires high investments in establishing the network for reverse logistics. The costs for specialized remanufacturing or recycling equipment influences the economic viability of reprocessing. Integration of product recovery operations with the original manufacturing process can offer economies of scale which involves sharing of locations, workforce, or even manufacturing lines.

• Redistribution
  Redistribution stage resembles a traditional distribution network. In particular, we find the conventional tradeoff between consolidation and responsiveness in transportation. If collection and redistribution are combined we can achieve efficiencies in vehicle loading. Redistribution can also be done along with distribution of new products.

Reverse Logistics Information Systems

One of the most serious problems that the companies face in execution of a reverse logistics operation is the dearth of good information systems. To work well, a flexible reverse logistics information system is required. Reverse logistics is typically a boundary-spanning process between the companies or business units of the same company, thus developing systems that have to work across boundaries adds additional complexity to the problem. E.g., for a retailer, a system that tracks returns at store level is desirable. The system should create a database at store level so that the retailer can begin tracking returned product and follow it all the way back through the supply chain.

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* Contributed by -
Rakesh Verma & Vinayak Vhatkar,
PGDIE Class of 2005,
NITIE, Mumbai.