Reverse logistics: Improvements and benefits when shifting parts exchanging process in a household appliance organization

Increased competition and access to information are forcing companies to provide quality to their products and services, aligned with a growing society pressure for less harmful environmental practices. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the adoption of reverse logistics (RL) may contribute to the generation of competitive advantage and improved quality in a part substitution process of a household appliance company.

This paper carried out a single case study in a household appliance company. The study collected data through semi-structured interviews in addition to document analysis and observation.

The implemented practices enhanced service maintenance and customer services and provided a more effective monitoring of defective parts. Moreover, such practices reduced unnecessary part substitutions, consumer dissatisfaction and undesired disposal in the environment. RL in the studied company has offered a potential contribution to the company quality strategies by providing more part returns, assuring cost savings, and reducing time to solve field problems.

The study was limited to a single case study. Thus, the study findings are not subject to generalization for other similar organizations.

This paper is one of the few studies on RL in a household company in the context of an emerging economy. Such feature denotes in a singular scenario in RL investigations about recovering defective parts.