July 2006
RLA Newsletter — Issue 25
Editor: Chris Morrow

RLA Newsletter

SPECIAL CONFERENCE EDITION
RLTS Amsterdam 2006

Conference & Expo Highlights

"We ran out of standing room" said Gailen Vick President of RLA as over 150 companies gathered in Amsterdam for Europe's largest reverse logistics conference! Reverse logistics professionals from throughout Europe met to share best practices and discuss the most pressing reverse logistics challenges.

Companies represented included Philips, IBM, Nokia, Cisco, HP, DHL, Flextronics, Erasmus University and Flanders Institute of Logistics — just to name a few. The complete list of the companies that participated is available on the Event Attendees page.

Conference sessions and panel discussions focused on industry-specific issues such as Returns and Warranties, Reverse Logistics versus Service Logistics, Managing WEEE and Outsourcing Reverse Logistics.

Brian O'Connor, Director of Logistics EMEA & APJ for EMC, commented, "The caliber of the speakers was excellent and there was much to be learned in the openness of the information sharing."

Attendees also had the opportunity to meet with Exhibitors during the 2-day expo. "There was a lot of traffic in the exhibit hall and we were able to connect with the right people." said Jennifer McLendon, Marketing Specialist at Technology Conservation Group.

Visit the Photo Gallery for more pictures from the show.

Conference Presentations Available

RLTS Amsterdam 2006 Conference Presentations are now available for download.

Downloads are free of charge for members of the Reverse Logistics Association. If you are not a member, but attended the Reverse Logistics Conference and Expo Amsterdam 2006, for a limited time you may apply the cost of your registration toward an association membership. More info...

UPS Stores
On The Move in Reverse Logistics

Veteran Airborne Express sales and marketing executive Tim Graham has joined Intechra as executive vice president of sales. Tim is responsible for Intechra's sales efforts domestically and internationally, including oversight of the company's 10 sales offices in the U.S.

Ben Gräve, former Director of Global Service Logistics at IBM, has joined the Aftersales Services and Logistics consultancy Barkawi. With his broad experience and international background Gräve will strengthen the Global Service Operations Practice of Barkawi.
Keynote Sessions

Reverse Logistics: Understanding The Business Impact of Returns: Who Do We Serve?

Tony Sciarrotta, Director of Returns Management, Philips Consumer Electronics drew a overflow crowd during his Tuesday morning keynote address. Tony highlighted Philips' returns management strategies and reviewed their short term and long term reverse logistics goals.

Next up was Jack Allen, Director, Global Supply Chain Processes at Scientific Atlantic presenting "The Best Defense is a Good Offense ... Reducing costs in Reverse Logistics by creating better Forward Logistics."

Wednesday morning began with the third keynote session. Tim Postel, Service Parts Operations Executive, EMEA for IBM presented "Highlighting the Successes, Challenges and Long Term Outlook of IBM's Reverse Logistics Strategies."

Keynote presentations are available from the RLA website.

RLTS Shanghai 2006

For the third year! Get ready for RLTS Asia in October 2006. Companies from the South Pacific, Asia and many other international delegates will be in attendance. In Shanghai this October, ODMs and OEMs will be looking for 3PSPs that can manage Reverse Logistics in North America and Europe, along with identifying Service Logistics solutions for the Far-East.

This premier Reverse Logistics Event is just 4 month away. The chance to meet with peers and competitors to discuss Reverse Logistics issues along with meeting key industry professionals make this Conference & Expo second to none.

Many Speaker & panelist positions are still open for participants. There are great benefits to speaking or participating on a panel. Also, it is never too late to make a good decision. So if you would like to Exhibit your services, click here.

Featured Article

Stimulating Sleeping Dogs to be Golden Retrievers

by Joe Patton

Proven and effective processes for the return of defective and excess service parts from the field have been achieved on an average of four days at several high tech service companies. These processes have led these companies to avoid investing in additional and costly service parts inventory.

Field service businesses for high tech IT, medical, telecom, and similar products can not afford to let sleeping parts lie. Golden retrievers, on the other hand once they are mature and trained, can become superior help for people. Too many service organizations let defective and excess parts sleep in corners of the office, garage, or vehicle. Those valuable assets should be rapidly returned and reused.  Full Article.

Industry Events

Industry News Highlights

RLA Links


Disclaimer - Reverse Logistics Association and its agents used their best efforts in collecting and preparing the information published herein. However, Reverse Logistics Association does not assume, and hereby disclaims, any and all liability for any loss or damage caused by errors, whether such errors resulted from negligence, accident, or other causes. Furthermore, the opinions and commentary of the RLA News may or may not be the opinion of Reverse Logistics Association (RLA) and RLA does not assume any affiliation with any of the above named companies by default of publishing this Newsletter.

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