Conference and Expo Highlights
Singapore's third annual RLTS Conference and Expo took place on October 24-26, 2006. OEMs, ODMs, Branded Companies and 3PSPs gathered from across the world to share best practices and discuss industry issues. Companies in attendance included Nokia, Agilent Technologies, Cisco, Apple, Toshiba and Fujitsu. The entire list of companies represented is available on the Event Attendees page.
The keynote address was delivered by John Benardino of Hewlett-Packard who looked at both internal and external challenges in the post-sales environment. He discussed proper recognition of costs associated with those services and production strategies that can allow companies to leverage opportunities during the post-sales life cycle. Conference sessions and panel discussions focused on industry-specific issues such as Increasing Customer Loyalty and Managing Environmental Challenges, Returns and Loss Prevention Strategies and Managing the Global Impact of Electronic Waste Legislation.
Exhibitors from around the globe including Repair Group, AER Worldwide and Cycleon, just to name a few, took advantage of the opportunity to connect with current and potential key business partners. "This event has proved to be very successful for us," said Jeroen Weers of Spring Global Mail. "We have made many business contacts and also met up with quite a few potential strategic partners. The Spring yo-yo which symbolizes our capability of doing forward and reverse logistics proved a major hit."
At the closing session, Gailen Vick, RLA President provided a recap and thanked all participants. iPods donated by Bell Industries and portable disk drives from Western Digital were among the many great prizes in the Lucky Draw. Repair Group was named "Best Booth" and Jabil took the award for "Best Use of the VIP Program."
Pictures from the Conference and Expo are now available.
The consumer electronics industry is a shining star in the US economy with robust growth and record-breaking productivity, according to the March 2006 report of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). The consumer electronics industry employs almost two million US workers across both retail and manufacturing sectors. Over the ten-year period from 1994 to 2004, CE-related retail productivity increased 309 percent, versus 52 percent in general retail. Unfortunately that shining star has a dark side: a returns rate in consumer electronics hovering at an astonishing twenty percent. Improving the inventory asset management of the volume of inventory in the reverse supply chain is the next major area of productivity improvement. This article will explore new trends in inventory asset management, leveraging the now ubiquitous internet auction paradigm and the insatiable global market for technology products, including all conditions of returns inventory. 
To better understand the power of RFID (radio frequency identification), it is first useful to compare and contrast RFID with bar code technology. The bar code has become a part of every product we buy, having become the ubiquitous standard for identifying and tracking products. While the bar code was intended to improve efficiencies in the grocery industry, it has become ubiquitous in the identification of everything, having been institutionalized across most industries and around the globe. In fact, the Uniform Code Council (UCC) estimates that there are five billion bar code scans each day around the world. Still, while the bar code and the UPC (Universal Product Code) have become omnipresent and enabled a host of applications and efficiencies, they only identify a "thing" as belonging to a particular class, category, or type. 
Visit the Exhibition Hall where OEMs, ODMs, Branded Companies and Retailers can find 3PSPs that can manage RL in the Americas, along with identifying solutions for Europe and the Far East. 
For those who like one-on-one time with their clients, join us at RLA Golf Tournament being held on Wednesday. Wednesday also offers the Post-conference Workshops.