MASTER THESIS WORK 2007 IDPPOPEXD: 07:98
Reverse Logistics Study
at Volvo CE CST Europe
Liliane Khalil & Malin Olofsson Reverse logistics study at Volvo CE CST Europe
- Performed at Volvo Construction Equipment, Customer Support Division -
Master of Science Thesis, D level, 20 points performed within the institution for Innovation, Design and Product Development at Mälardalen University.
Report number: IDPPOPEXD: 07:98
Authors: Liliane Khalil and Malin Olofsson
Program: Engineering program: Innovative Enterprising and Process development
Date: Eskilstuna 2008
Commissioner: Volvo Construction Equipment Customer Support division
Industry supervisor: Eva Olsson - Volvo CE CST Karl Serneberg - Volvo CE CST
Academic supervisor: Mats Jackson – Mälardalen University
Examiner: Sabah Audo – Mälardalen University Abstract
Title: Reverse logistics study at Volvo CE CST Europe
Authors: Liliane Khalil and Malin Olofsson
Commissioner: Volvo Construction Equipment (VCE). Division; Customer Support (CST). Region; Europe. ------
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.
Key words: Reverse logistics, aftermarket, cost reduction, customer satisfaction. Acknowledgement
This Master thesis work is our final assignment before getting our university degree after 4, 5 years from the engineering program: Innovative Enterprising and Process Development. It is as a part of the examination with emphasis on logistics.
We would like to express our gratitude to our supervisor and coach Eva Olsson and Karl Serneberg at Volvo CE CST for all the support and inspiration that we have been given during our research. It is much appreciated that you have giving us the chance to travel to German to get an insight view of Reverse Logistics from a dealers point of view. More rewarding is that you helped to arrange so that the benchmarking at Ford Motor Company in Germany were possible.
Also, we want to thank Marcus Bergqvist, Fredrik Gerhardsson, Jannicke Lewin at Volvo CST and Christer Grefve, Thomas Rosander, Niklas Mörkberg, Håkan Adolfsson, Johan Nilsson Magnus Johnsson at Volvo Parts among many others for the interesting discussions and meetings. You have all contributed to this Master thesis.
Furthermore, we address special thanks to our supervisor at Mälardalen University Mats Jackson, Professor of innovative production. Thanks for all valuable assistance during this Master thesis.
Thanks, as well, to Börje Hägg with st