Projects

ECO (Effective Closed loop supply chain Organizations)

Given the strong focus on business sustainability nowadays, more and more companies view their return flows on a global scale. Life cycle management is becoming an integral part of global supply chains, which ultimately leads to more involvement with the installed base through service logistics and configuration management as well as proper take back and recycling systems for End-of-Life (EOL) products.

Drivers behind globalization of recovery operations include globalization of ‘forward’ operations (e.g. outsourcing to low wage countries), installed base related operations (service, etc) and legislation on EOL products. Globalization of recovery –now often hindered by legislation– creates opportunities for lower recovery costs, more efficient recovery and higher secondary market volumes. Furthermore, globalized return flows provide counter-balances against the current imbalances in trade flows between Asia, Europe and the USA, which might improve transportation efficiencies and reduce empty container kilometres. Moreover, on the right scale, return flows may provide mainports with important opportunities.

The ultimate goal of ECO is to identify opportunities for businesses to transition towards global closed loop supply chains and to identify the barriers that may hamper that transition. ECO is a cooperation of various partners in academia, business and government within the TRANSUMO framework  and runs until September 2009.

For more information regarding this research project contact Dr. Erwin van der Laan.