Supply Chain Management Journal 2012, Volume 3, Number 1

The new filosophy for the future ECR: Working together to create sustainable value for consumers better, faster and at less cost

ecr, scm, efficient consumer response, supply chain management

June 2012, pp 1 – 18

During the last period, the issue ‘reverse logistics’ has become of great interest, due to the growth of the environmental awareness, regulatory shifts and economic burden. Accordingly, almost each company started step by step to include the reverse flows of end-of-life and end-of-use products among their aim of logistics planning and control, in order to increase their performances and thus, efficiency and effectiveness but also with the purpose of creating more sustainable supply chains. The study issues emerge the moment when the reverse supply chain strategies are being considered, according to which strategies are both efficient and effective for the reverse supply chain, the main problem being finding out under which circumstances individual companies could apply these strategies in order to achieve cost-efficient and rapid answer in the
reverse supply chain. In the same time, as already mentioned above, lately, debates and researches regarding supply chain strategies have encompassed two basic philosophies, respectively lean and agile supply chains, as well as their corroboration into the concept of leagile philosophy. Each concept will be presented offering a strong theoretical framework for achieving the objectives of the research in this article. Therefore, the first objective of this article is to explore the potential for individual companies to adopt and implement forwards supply chain methods into their reverse supply chains, out of which,
the article will focus particularly on lean, agile and leagile strategies. The second aim is to establish under which conditions each strategy could be implemented respectively. The study is limited within electronic industry and addresses particularly to commercial returns for adjustments and maintenances. Empirical information was collected through several semi-introduced interviews with electronic retailers, interviews which disclose the present situation of commercial returns within the industry. The qualitative analysis and its findings were analyzed in cooperation with a diverse literature review of previous researches over this issue, according to which, conclusions to the study questions were produced and also suggestions for future studies.

lean, agile, leagile, Supply Chain Management, electronic industry, strategy.

June 2012, pp 19 – 31

Activities like delivery of goods or passenger transport represents today a necessity and all the actors involved are pursuing their goals in reducing costs or effects of these activities. Minimizing traveling time and arriving in time at the destination,
reducing fuel consumption and respecting schedules when is needed are benefits of future route planning systems. Achieving these benefits would not be possible without incorporating up-to-date road traffic information obtained from vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication systems. In this paper we present a method of using traffic information, received on board of vehicles, to optimize calculation of a minimum cost route, and we propose a vehicle-infrastructure and vehicle-to-vehicle traffic data exchange system architecture to support the route planning systems.

intelligent transport systems, traffic data, route planning, V2I, V2V

June 2012, pp 32 – 42

At present, the issue of sustainable development is getting more important. More popular is getting a common belief that in order to be able to develop in the most optimal rate, it is necessary to integrate all actions in the social, economic and environmental aspects. Shorting these areas into one coherent process will allow for a better use of the effects obtained in this way. One of the main beneficiaries of the sustainable development conception are the cities, that have a multitude logistics’ operations. The urban logistics is addressed to the cities, to prevent negative effects which are occurring in them, in cities, working in the areas of sustainable development (economic, social and environmental). The article presents the impact of logistics activities on the basis of urban logistics in a fully sustainable urban development.

Urban logistics, sustainable development, city, market, ecology, society

June 2012, pp 43 – 50

Nowadays, there are a lot of products which are design and manufacture for future reuse. It becomes possible because of re-manufacturing processes or recycling, or their connections. These processes are the crucial elements of reverse logistics system. Managing the closed-loop supply chains is one of the main goals of the reverse logistics activity. In this paper is specified the essence of reverse logistics, and after, in this context, the characteristics and meaning of closed-loop supply chains.

reverse logistics, closed-loop, supply chain management

June 2012, pp 51 – 57

Customer relationship management is a strategy with high importance, actively adapted, of an activity field which follows a systematic construction and continuous maintenance of a long and profitable relationship with customers.
The purpose of the paper is to make an analysis of the management systems of the company and methods by which these systems can be implemented in integrated software solutions, capable to manage the resources and the clients of a multinational company. The specialists use several concepts that define the organization orientation and its marketing policies to client. Examples are customer relationship management, relational marketing, and customer relationship marketing and customer management. We witness today more and more organizations oriented towards developing profitable long-term relationships with clients as a way of ensuring sustainable development and increase market competitiveness.
In the same time, the paper follows the script of the necessity and implementation of such software solutions for a mid-level multinational company whose main activity field is sale of materials and products.
The present paper addresses the issues of:
• Current development status in company management systems by tracking the level of development and the requirements of a complex management system for a real company today;
• current stage in developing and implementing CRM customer relationship management / ERP Enterprise Resource Planning solutions which analyse the general requirements of a system of customer relationship management and company management both from the customer’s perspective ( who has to make sure that the chosen application will be really useful ), as well as from the developer’s point of view who must analyse the products that he offers in order to be competitive on the market of the CRM/ERP products. Several current problems within companies, concerning software solutions used for management, are also analysed.
• Application concept of customer relationship management for a multinational company – where the script of the events leading to necessity of developing a CRM solution for a company is presented. The evolution of the respective company is
presented, from a modest player on the import-export market in Romania to a successful multinational company. Initial specifications are listed briefly, the reasons that determine the use of a custom solution and the specifications made by the company managers in collaboration with developer’s architect.
• Application development of customer relationship management for a multinational company – presents all the stages of the project from the moment when it is taken by the developer. The planning stage is described, with the resources involved, the technologies used, the application structure, meaning the data base scheme, the files structure and the modules structure.

CRM (customer relationship management), ERP (Enterprise resource planning), relationship management for a multinational company, SQL data base.

June 2012, pp 58 – 73