Based On Reverse Logistics, Inventory Control

The research of this thesis is focused on a new field in logistics: inventory control for reverse logistics.Reverse logistics is: The process of planning, implementing, and controlling the efficient, cost effective flow of raw materials, in-process inventory, finished goods and related information from the point of origin to the point of consumption for the purpose of conforming to customer requirements. Western world have already waken up to the importance of reverse logistics and focused on research of reverse logistics since late 1990's.Inventory management and control is the most important part of the reverse logistics as well as forward logistics. In this research, there are big difference of inventory management and control between reverse logistics and forward logistics. The traditional inventory management concerns on three problems: 1) how often to review the stocks 2) when to replenish stocks 3) how much to replenish. However, inventory management of reverse logistics takes account on the fourth one: when to replenish from. Inventory management of reverse logistics is significant for manufacturer, such as automobile and consumable electronics manufacturer, it's very important to research inventory management of reverse logistics for them because the amount of returns are larger in those manufacturer.This thesis presents solutions to some problem exist in the reverse logistics inventory control based on the traditional inventory control and combined with the specialty of reverse logistics.Chapter1 introduces the origination of reverse logistics and illuminate the significance to research inventory management for reverse logistics. Chapter2 analyses inventory of reverse logistics, these analysis illustrates the reason why the product became the inventory of reverse logistics and some reverse logistics activities dealing with the return products. Chapter3 presents two different kinds of problem of inventory control for reverse logistics: the one is autonomous recovery problem, another one is managed recovery problem. Chapter4 presentsthe calculation of optimal order quantity of single period inventory system of autonomous recovery problem based on the traditional "news vendor problem". And also analyses an example. Chapter5 presents the inventory control policy and calculation of inventory control parameter for managed recovery problem based on traditional inventory control policy and calculation. And also analyses an example at the end of this chapter. Chapter6 draw the conclusion of this thesis and propose the future research of inventory control for reverse logistics.Yi YuMing (Transportation planning & management)Directed by Wang Xiao...