Theoretical Aspects of Transport Items Return Management in Supply Chains
MAGAZINE №4 (93) August 2019
AUTHORS ALYMOVSKAYA N.S., LEVINA T.V.
CATEGORY Analytics and reviews Return flows management (reverse logistics)
ABSTRACT
In the theory and practice of logistics and supply chain management, more and more attention is paid to return flows management. There are a sufficiently large number of research works that has been devoted to the reverse logistics of goods: there are many technologies and best practices that have been successfully implemented.
As for the tasks of managing returns of transport items and packaging, they have been left outside the scope of experts' attention for a long time. Recently, the activity of advertising campaigns for pulling and pallets rental has increased in Russia. Some companies (mainly in manufacturing and trading sectors of FMCG) are going to implement, are already implementing or reporting substantial savings from projects for organizing container return management. Nevertheless, there are still many gaps for researchers and business community.
The article provides an overview of recent publications on the returnable containers management, analyzes terminology in this area, identifies and analyzes the main strategies for managing return flows of containers.
The study shows that the issues of transport items return management have not received adequate coverage in Russian scientific and business literature. Moreover, despite the variety of foreign studies there is no basic terminology in this field and systematization of supply chain configuration alternatives. In addition, fragmentation of information in open sources about the practice of implementing / operating transport items management systems in Russian business makes it relevant to conduct research on this topic.
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