Is It Possible to Manage the Product Recovery Processes in an ERP? Analysis of Functional Needs

Abstract

In today’s business environment, different factors make product return and product recovery increasingly more important in order to recover value and increase the company’s profitability. In such an environment, where sustainability concerns and awareness of environmental responsibility in industrial production has considerably grown, reverse logistics (RL) becomes more relevant and, thus, its correct management using suitable information systems (IS) is fundamental. Nevertheless, today’s IS in general, and in Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) in particular, are developed based on conventional logistic processes that do not contemplate the specific characteristics of RL. The main objective of this work is to analyze the functional requirements of an IS to manage product recovery processes that serve as a guide to develop a suitable ERP for RL. The research methodology has been conducted with a qualitative approach, through which the main specific requirements that an IS must meet to manage RL have been stablished, and a data model for the development of solutions to the requirements identified in an ERP system has been proposed. For the development in the ERP it is recommended to start with the requirement of RBOM (Reverse Bill Of Materials) management, since it is the most complex development and has a greater relationship with the rest.