Studies on Some Aspects of Implementation of Reverse Logistics in Indian Context

Abstract

In today’s highly-dynamic world, ongoing technological advancements, scarcity of resources, high customer expectations and competitive markets compel industries and organizations to enhance their productivity and competitiveness through improving their supply chain systems. It is being observed that there is increase in the flow of product returns because of product recalls, warranty of returns, end-of use returns and end-of-life returns and so on. The fast changing technology and demand of consumers for advanced and user friendly products result in new product to appear in market day to day. This also gives rise to increase in the outdated products. Reverse Logistics (RL) mainly focusses on backward flow of materials from customers to the suppliers with the goal of maximizing values from the returned items and minimizing the total cost incurred.


Now-a-days, RL has been gaining considerable attention among manufacturers and consumers due to number of factors like environmental concerns, competitive and market motives and direct economic benefits. Proper planning and implementing RL can bring profit and socio-economic benefit to any organization. Managing RL needs to have an appropriate framework addressing issues related to its implementation and product recovery. India is well endowed with both technology and human resources. Despite this, the concept of RL is yet not widely accepted. To cater the need for this emerging field with inter-disciplinary and multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) complexity, designing a framework has always been a challenging issue. The purpose of this research is to investigate current RL theories and applications and analyze drivers, barriers and actual practical aspects in Indian context.

The objective of the proposed work is to assess the implementation level of RL to develop a strategic framework for mitigation of obstacles and propose a model to expedite the development and implementation. A well-developed reverse logistics and management plan carries a vital strategic significance. The present work analyzes barriers to implement RL, interrelation between barriers, development of a strategy framework for mitigation obstacles and actual practical aspects in Indian context. The work is further extended to find out the possible product recovery options and propose an efficient methodology to determine the best possible alternative. This would help decision makers to strategically plan and implement RL with a realistic approach.