Reverse logistics and qualitymanagement issues: State-of-the-art

Abstract

It is generally accepted that the positive effects of quality management are several. An indicative list should undoubtedly contain the reduction of costs which are attributed to the poor quality of products or services, better relationships with suppliers and customers, faster distribution of products or services to market, reduced waste, increased added value to customers and better working conditions. More or less, these are also the benefits that companies should expect if quality management prevails in Reverse Logistics (RL) and recovery activities. Therefore, the main target of this book is to elucidate these benefits, discuss extensively for the first time the role of quality management in RL and examine broadly various quality issues and their interaction with RL. Taking the first step into this direction we exhibit the state-of-the-art regarding the interaction of various research areas on quality management and RL, by identifying the most important research articles that have recently appeared and probe the impact of quality issues on RL.