Reverse Logistics Professional

The Ease of Use Round Table www.eouroundtable.com has developed a number of great tools and white papers to help you to analyze your product returns, understand why your are getting returns and take proactive action to reduce the returns. 

The Ease of Use Round Table was started in response to data suggesting that Ease of Use was the number two reason that potential new buyers were not buying PCs. Since then, their focus has broadened and participating companies include representatives from the desktop and mobile PC OEMs, server OEMs, IT-solutions providers, peripherals providers, communications equipment OEMs, hand held manufacturers, telecom providers, electronics and CE product providers.  The EOU Roundtable includes companies such as Intel, Microsoft, HP, Dell, Siras, Philips, Access Technologies, Lexmark, Best Buy, Broadcom, Lenovo, LG Electronics, Nokia, Samsung, France Telecom, and Canon

Many proactive companies are spending a lot of time trying to determine how to avoid returns.  If you could reduce Your No Trouble Found (NTF, NPF No Problem Found) how much of an impact would that have on your reverse logistics?  Below is a great Product Re-Design Tool and questionaire to help assess your products with the goal of reducing NFT returns.

The Electronics Supply Chain Association, ESCA has very little mention of Reverse Logistics on their website or at their conference agenda for October 2007, but you can bet that most of these electronics industry Supply Chain Professionals are spending more time than they would like dealing with issues related to their Product Returns and Reverse Logistics.

If you need to analyze your Reverse Logistics systems and processes or to develop a Reverse Logistics business case to assess Return On Investment ROI for a project, it is difficult to know where to start.

Developing a Reverse Logistics framework for your company is an excellent way to start your analysis.  A framework diagram and document helps you organize the key areas of all your returns processing.

Some highlights are as follows...

"As companies strive to wring every cent out of their logistics costs, they're increasingly taking a hard look at their reverse logistics practices.  And no wonder  --  they may find a motherlode waiting to be mined."

Inbound Logistics is the source of one of the best, well researched articles on Reverse Logistics.  This article is required reading for everyone in Reverse Logistics.  

The article outlines a list of steps to Get Started In Reverse - action steps to help you "develop and implement an integrated approach to reverse logistics that will lead to increased customer satisfaction, fewer returns, lower costs, and greater return on your assets". 

Forbes outlines some great suggestions for reducing Reverse Logistics costs:

1. Slash unnessesary returns to reduce credits issued - "A company that currently doesn’t monitor its returns can cut between 15% and 30% in credit issuance by correcting this process"
2. Further recommendations in the following list:

"3PLs themselves realize from 12% to 15% profits on this business"

 

You can search for information about Reverse Logistics by Topic:

1.  Search - there is a search field at the top of each page.  A powerful advanced search is listed in the menu.  Each article utilizes keywords to help your search.

2.  Tags - try our great new Tags feature.  Just click on a Tag below to take you to a listing of all content with the Tag you selected.  Tags can also be found at the end of each article in the site.  A list of all Tags can be found in the Tag Cloud

Common Topics tags and keywords are:

policy, customer service, RMA, authorization, return, receive, ship, credit, inspection, sort, test, refurbish, resell, inventory management, benchmark, key performance indicator, best practices, Tips, outsource

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You can search for information about Reverse Logistics by Industry by using:

1.  Search - there is a search field at the top of each page.  A powerful advanced search is listed in the menu.  Each article utilizes keywords to help your search.

2.  Tags - try our great new Tags feature.  Just click on a Tag below to take you to a listing of all content with the Tag you selected.  Tags can also be found at the end of each article in the site.  A list of all Tags can be found in the Tag Cloud

Common industry tags and keywords are:

3rd Party Service Provider, computer, consumer electronics, consumer goods, electronics, high tech, manufacturing, retail, telecom, wireless 

If you want to suggest a new Tag, please contact us or This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .

While the Reverse Logistics teams at most companies are resource strapped and operating on shoestring budgets, Nancy Maclean’s team at Mattel gets all the resources she needs.

Maclean and her team have developed a very effective program to monitor, manage and prevent Returned Goods. Their work has resulted in a reduction in Mattel’s cost of defective returns by over 50% over the last 5 years.

One of the quickest and best opportunities for profit in your reverse logistics operations is available in the area of inventory asset disposition. One of the best ways to enhance the disposition value of your refurbished goods is through speed. The "Need for Speed" should be one of your top 3 objectives in your Reverse Logistics processing operations.

A great deal of Reverse Logistics success can be achieved by focusing on Returns prevention.  Philips Consumer Electronics began its Return rate reduction initiatives by understanding what was causing the Returns and seeking ways to avoid or prevent Returns. 

This case study written by Tony Sciarrotta from Philips is a must read of all Reverse Logistics professionals.

How well are you managing your Reverse Logistics Operations? How do your operations people determine the best course of action for that pallet full of returned goods that just arrived?

Returns operations and processing is an emerging topic that has been neglected for a long time. There is no school for reverse logistics, no rules or methods, and no best practices or comparisons. How do you know WHAT you should be doing? How do you know HOW WELL you are doing?