Conclusions

We have begun our investigation in Chapter 1 by pointing out that goods flows in today’s business environments are no longer unidirectional. Rather than following a clearly ordered hierarchy, supply chain members form general networks and the corresponding goods flows involve loops. Goods flows. opposite to the traditional supply chain direction becoming increasingly important has given rise to the notion of 'Reverse Logistics'. In Chapter 3 we have indicated several categories of such 'reverse' flows. Although including traditional elements such as warranty returns and by-product recycling the recent interest in Reverse Logistics is mainly driven by the growing importance of used product and commercial returns. Throughout this monograph we have illustrated the relevance of reverse goods flows to companies' business activities by giving numerous examples stretching from copier remanufacturing to carpet recycling and from single-use cameras to reusable packaging. In particular, we have taken a closer look at return flow management at IBM, which we have seen to include used equipment recovery on the product, component, and material level. To round up our investigation we now return to the research questions formulated in Chapter 1.