The Future of Forecasting for Returns Panel Discussion

Ping Asset Innovations & Start Ups

Keynote Presentation by Jeremy Witte - Best Buy

State of the Industry from Tony Sciarrotta - RLA

The Future of Trade Ins and Consumer Exchanges Panel Discussion

Trisa Thompson, DELL - Keynote Presentation: Examining The Circular Economy

Keynote Presentation by Trevor Milton - CEO of Nikola Motors

Reverse Logistics and the Circular Economy

Examining The Secondary Market Panel Discussion

Presentation by Tony Sciarrotta, Executive Director of RLA at Home Delivery World 2017 in Atlanta Georgia. The Final Mile Hangover: Reverse Logistics

Keynote Presentation

Lenovo computers is transforming its culture by implementing Bold Work Out throughout its organizations with demonstrated measurable and sustainable results of greater than 80% in process efficiencies and organizations that think “as one”. The Lenovo team will be sharing their expertise of the world-wide implementation from manufacturing to sales, results, successes, cultural implications, leadership growth and engagement of the employees. Mario Bofill, Western Operations, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and , Lenovo

Increasingly the IT industry Manufacturing, Engineering and Supply Chain Executives are challenging their traditional corporate policies in regard to the reuse of used components in new system manufacture. It is the substantial (80%+) hard cash savings achieved by fulfilling manufacturing supply chain or spares inventory demand from used parts recovered from returned systems, that is driving the broader adoption of this corporate discipline. The potential cost savings are just too large to ignore, particularly as IT hardware margins are under increasing pressure. 

Mike Higgins, Chief Sales & Marketing Officer, Wisetek Solutions Limited

This case study will address a major transformation that took place at SUN Microsystems following the acquisition by Oracle in 2009, and how a traditional supply chain was modernized to create a high performance value network including the reverse logistics, flow of highly valuable information and the needs of partners. Benefits achieved from this transformation were over $100Million. This is a story worth hearing, sharing and considering for your organization. Stephen Slade, Senior Director, Industries Marketing, Oracle

While Money-Back-Guarantee (MBG) return policies are common in practice, the academic literature provides little guidance on the value, if any, that consumers assign to such a policy. For online retailers, both shipping charges and seller reputation may influence the perceived value of MBGs. A non-refundable forward shipping charge is likely to be perceived by consumers as an implicit restocking fee and hence, decreases the value of an MBG policy. On the other hand, good customer feedback may signal that MBGs will be handled easily, thus increasing their value in the eyes of consumers. To investigate the value of MBGs in the online context, we collect the final selling prices of identical consumer electronics products offered by different vendors (with different return policies) on eBay auctions. We estimate that offering an MBG policy for online consumer electronics increases a customer's valuation of a product by an average of 5.2%, which is significantly influenced by both seller reputation and shipping charges. Our results provide an empirical measure of the value of an MBG that can be weighed against the cost implications of providing such a policy. Mark Ferguson, Professor of Management Science, University of South Carolina

Expanding on the traditional stratified recovery channel based approaches to disposition of product, the DDM approach considers various input factors like volumes, quality and warranty costs, age of product, expected recovery and infrastructure requirements to determine the most optimal combination of channels to maximize recoveries. The different channels may be internal use, high margin / online re-sales, offline broker /retail channels or alternate regional markets Ramswaroop Boddu, Supply Chain Consultant, Dell, Inc.

Companies make money selling things, not taking them back. But companies automating the reverse logistics process have discovered a nontraditional but relatively easy way to move dollars to the bottom line. (4 pages)

Authors: Lee Norman and Warren Sumner, ClearOrbit

There are some unmistakable truths about top corporate execs. CEOs and EVPs love to walk the aisles of their stores, which are shiny and freshly waxed in anticipation of their "surprise" visit. Yet, on such field trips, they rarely see the stock rooms, and they are often hustled past the return counter. Likewise, they ride around the distribution center, seeing "neatness" on parade - rack after rack of new merchandise. But they are not afforded the same "royal treatment" when they tour their firm's return processing area. (3 pages)

Author: David C. Wyld, Southeastern Louisiana University

How do you monitor the pulse of your Reverse Logistics operations? How do you monitor your Returns processing activity? What measurements do you use to benchmark and improve your performance?

Successful Reverse Logistics performance requires more than a few month end reports. In this article we look at ways to maximize your Reverse Logistics performance. (3 pages)

Author: Paul Rupnow, ReverseLogisticsProfessional.com

The ready availability of retail-ready packaging and multiple trip packaging systems is taken for granted across the multiple retail sectors. However, significant inefficiencies impact upon the Reverse Logistics phases for these systems creating multiple barriers to reverse logistics efficiencies. This research reveals the reasons beneath the barriers and proposes three alternative Reverse Logistics strategies to overcome the barriers and add value into the reverse streams.