Title: Linking grave to cradle: the next big reverse logistics business

Authors: Muthu Krishna Vasudevan; Gyan Prakash

Addresses: ABV-IIITM Gwalior, Room No. 270, BH 02, Morena Link Road, Gwalior, 474 015, Madhya Pradesh, India ' ABV-IIITM Gwalior, Room No. 108, Block-E, Morena Link Road, Gwalior, 474 015, Madhya Pradesh, India

Abstract: The paper explores contemporary reverse logistics structure with possibilities of societal driven sustainability impacts. Extending the existing research limits, the paper promotes 'reverse logistics' as one of the most innovative fields of operations and supply chain management. It traces the capacities of reverse logistics to set trends of logical frameworks to process rejected/returned goods for monetary and morale advantages. When life of a product is challenged by updates with every sunrise, it is very important to sort out flexible management aspects to recover, reuse and recycle along diversified sectors in managing returned product acquisitions and customer experiences. The paper uses a collective qualitative analysis of reverse logistics ideas to identify and work with challenges, strategies and key drivers of reengineering and reverse operations. RL as a master subject of sustainability is studied for futuristic 'closed loop' operations. RL is studied for industrial expectations placed along with limitations analysed to meet with new sets of discussions, proposals, promotions and disseminations pushing towards sustainable greener industrial responsibility.

Keywords: sustainable operations management; reverse logistics; EOL products; EOL product management; end of life products; closed loop supply chains; green technologies; social innovations; supply chain management; SCM; sustainability; reengineering; flexible management; product recovery; product reuse; product recycling.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLSM.2016.075208

International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 2016 Vol.23 No.4, pp.419 - 444

Received: 18 Sep 2014
Accepted: 08 Nov 2014
Published online: 08 Mar 2016 *

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