CIMA E1 Syllabus E1. Operations management - Reverse Logistics - Notes ^{20 / 21}

We have already seen from Porter's value chain that outbound logistics concerns the delivery of products to the customer.

Reverse logistics is exactly the opposite - receiving products back from the customer.

While this commonly includes the return of faulty or unwanted goods, reverse logistics also involves the return of used products.

If this backwards step is small and infrequent it is not a big problem from businesses in comparison to returns of goods from customers becoming large scale. 

Honest advertising and managing expectations are effective policies that will reduce returns from 
customers.

Examples of reverse logistics include the return of printer toners so that they can be refilled and sold again, cars and machinery that are leased have to be returned after the leasing period is complete, and products used for demonstration purposes will also find their way back to the seller.

It is important for organisations to plan how to handle the return of goods and ensure that where possible they are recycled into new products, refurbished and sold again or disposed of appropriately.

Accordingly, production processes should be developed so that recycled materials can enter the production process at an appropriate point and that separate production lines are available for product refurbishment.