Barriers to Reverse Logistics
Reverse logistics is such an important area that the Reverse Logistics Executive Council was formed to research and analyze the many barriers to its success. In a survey of 311 logistics managers, the council found that the major barrier to reverse logistics was simply that many of the managers-40 percent of them in fact-considered the topic of "relative unimportance," as shown in Figure 10-2. Lack of company policies and lack of systems were cited next by a tie vote of 35 percent. Other barriers were also listed, but it is interesting to note that the top two barriers were not technology-related-they relate strictly to a refusal to give reverse logistics a business priority and to create policies to enforce that priority.
FIGURE 10-2 Barriers to Reverse Logistics
Source: Reverse Logistics Executive Council