Reverse Logistics Study at Volvo CE CST Europe

Abstract: Assignment: The mission of the assignment is to map the four return flows with respect to returning volume, weight, frequency, pick up- and delivery points. Today Volvo CE has a lack of information that concerns their own Reverse logistic processes. It is hard for Volvo CE to see where changes need to be done, due to limited reliable sources. Purpose: The purpose with the study is to make the return flows easier, less expansive and more manageable for both Volvo and their dealers. Further, environmental issues have to be considered in order to find improvements of the returning routines. The analysis is done to bring forth a proposal that will contribute to less unnecessary transports and that also will make it possible to reduce cost. Result: A couple of improvement areas have been discovered, some of them are radical while others are incremental. The one thing they have in common is to make sure that the return flows are being handled and seen as one common flow rather then separately treated. Among the improvements these are some recommendations to Volvo CE: - Appoint special delivery point for warranty returns and make sure that the warranty routines are followed so that unnecessary transports can be reduced. - Store less cores for remanufacturing at the Core Hub. Cores that are not needed are not necessary to transport to the Core Hub. - Make better cost registrations and cost follow ups and evaluate customer satisfaction to be able to find improvement areas in the future.