A Note on Reverse Logistics

What is the "current macroeconomic situation" in the U.S. (e.g. is the U.S. economy currently concerned about unemployment, inflation, recession, etc.)? What fiscal policies and monetary policies would be appropriate at this time?

Today the United States Americans more than ever; there is a constant fear of an awaiting recession due to the economy. The recession in the later 2000’s has been known as the greatest economic decline since the Great Depression. The United States of America, the banks and businesses are not able to succeed and are failing due to the market. Many people across America cannot afford their homes or bills due to the unemployment rate that seems to keep increasing. Many people blame this on the higher oil or gas prices, and the wars that the United States acts on. The recession has overall declined our economic activity in business profits, employment, and investment. This is all due to our falling market, and the rise of prices that so many Americans cannot afford.

The complexities and the uncertainties of the government spending leave consumers in a world of dubiety and lead to declines on their spending and investment. The governments need to provide simple and elegant solutions in response to the recession. The consumers need to understand these solutions which would allow them to

It seems that the United States is approaching a crucial moment both for the real economy and for the financial crisis that caused this severe recession. Of course, this is good news that comes after many months of bad news, but we must continue to take into account how extremely difficult it is to forecast the behavior of the economy and financial markets during the crisis. The general predictions have been wrong again and again, and unexpected and even unprecedented events have followed one another closely. A cautious optimism should be the order of the day. We fear that the recent reactions of financial markets and some analysts reflect too much optimism without paying sufficient attention to uncertainty. Public policies should continue

In the current American economy, we must concentrate on the future. The current trends that are taking place in our economy are essential for determining the future of the U.S. economy. Some of the trends in the U.S. economy consist of business cost rising due to uncertainly. What this means is that as a result

What is the state of the US economy? Has a cloud fallen on the US and harder economic times coming? Is continued decline require a cautious posture? “It's hard to decipher the state of the economy from headlines.” Although the economy is not equal to pre-recession times which was more than six years ago, the “jobs lost to the Great Recession have been replaced. Unemployment is down. The stock market has generally prospered.” What role does consumer

Overall, this leaves the impression that strong economic condition is not absolute. We should always be mindful and watchful so as not to be blinded and overconfident in the financial and economic conditions of the

The U.S. economy appears to be on track for a sustainable recovery from one of the biggest economic problems in history, the Great Recession. Unemployment and inflation are both down from where they had been and things have shifted towards recovery. Inflation is likely to remain in an acceptable zone, but policymakers must be vigilant concerning inflation expectations. Employment has recovered slowly but surely as well. Uncertainty/Fear appears to be growing among American, particularly with the unrest in the Middle East, but studies are showing that faith in economists (and the Fed leaders) among citizens is growing rapidly. Due to the uncertainty, flexibility is

The current macroeconomic situation in the United States is making a significant improvement due to the increase of productivity, 4.6 percent economic development, and with unemployment at 5.3 percent. But despite these positive results, many difficulties are still incoming locally and worldwide.

Americans have been bombarded by new worries in recent days with the war in Libya, unrest in much of the Middle East, and the seemingly endless series of catastrophes in Japan as reported by a recent Gallup poll measuring economic confidence. Added to that, there is a weak job market, increasing fuel prices, and fierce budget battles in Congress, obviously, it is clear the U.S. economy still faces

* With United Kingdom budget for 2010 out, the general election coming up and the country in serious debt, there is uncertainty what the future holds with politicians different set of policies. Already there are increases in duty of some products consumer can hardly do without. And also with plans to increase tax for debt recovery, customers’ confidence will be low spending their money due to uncertainty of the country’s future and will affect Pret whose target are office workers and affluent customers.

It is the responsibility of every organisation to minimize its waste and in the case of “Ourtyres4U” they must consider three factors to minimize their waste and this process can be known as Reverse Logistics. They are Reduce, Reuse and Recycle (Handfield, 2008).

In reverse logistics, the design, control, and operation of a recovery value system will reflect the whole life cycle of a product. This is the concept of closed-loop supply chains, in which zero-waste is achieved in the “forward flows of materials (from suppliers to end customers) and the reverse flow of products (post consumption) back to the manufacturing or distribution supply chains” (Book p.151-152). Reverse logistics supports closed-loop supply chains and coordinating the chains to achieve (or maintain) competitive advantage. A fragmented chain, where each member is only focused on its own processes, is considered a key Supply Chain Management problem. It is not wise for Sandvik to fragment, or decouple the forward and reverse supply chains.

There are different ways through which a performance of a system can be assessed (order fill rate, production condition, accurate documentation among the most important), and the measure used by ALP seems to have some deficiencies in assessing the real impact of the operations undergone by the company and the final customer satisfaction. In fact can be said that such a measure doesn’t take in to consideration returned items, and considered the logistic process concluded in the moment in which the freight leaves the stocking point, in this way lacking an overall view of the process that can be seen as an old view of the logistic system. If customer service is defined as “the entire process of filling customer’s order […] handling the possible return of the goods” the current measurement system adopted by ALP is leaving out all the post-transaction elements which are vital to establish a good relationship with the customer and have to be planned for in advance. This is also one of the reasons why the service level is so strongly affected by stock availability. Focusing on the end-user side could give a more realistic picture of the performance of the company at a logistic level.

Forward logistics (or conventional logistics) is the regular distribution channel followed by the manufactures from time immemorial. Forward logistics concentrates on the products (goods or services) reaching the consumer end and deals with the line of flow from the manufacturer’s end to the consumer’s end. It deals with the very essence of Supply Chain Management and logistical activities of an organization. It has a significant impact on the primary operations carried out, which act as the basic revenue generating aspect of a business. In this logistical system, the flow is a “one-to-many” type and the forecasting or traceability is quite simple.