The major tangible outcome of this research was the new organization and information systems for CSD after applying SSM seven-stage analysis and process. SSM provide the system-thinking process and means to evaluate complex environments of reverse logistics.
Although a number of practical issues still need to be addressed for SSM to be effective, most of CSD current issues can be covered by the new developed information systems and organization. In short, SSM provides a usable and suitable framework for reverse logistics management in EMS industry.
5.1 Managerial Implication
Applying soft system methodology in reverse logistics: Many manufacturers are looking for ways to save money, and there’s a lot of opportunity in the reverse logistics management. However, under the uncertain return quantity, quality and time, there are a plenty of challenges for managers to deal with on day-to day operation. Applying soft system methodology to analyze the problem situation in real world and come out with the organization change and improvement is doable according to this research.
Information system should be applied in reverse logistics management: There is much room for improvement of information control systems in reverse logistics in this case as well as other companies. The manager should consider the long term investment plan in reverse logistics systems which should improve the effectiveness and efficiency of revere logistics processes. Completely information control system will not only solve the issues, but also will increase the competitiveness for the company.
Keep an optimal organization in reverse logistics: We have started as a system study of CSD without specific terms of reference, now became focused on helping the organization bring about a major structural change. Managers should give reverse logistics as much as attention as forward logistics. Although there is no permanent optimal organization for a reverse logistics, the function and human resource should be reviewed and developed for the continuous improvement.
5.2 Contribution
In our study processes, SSM brought the new methodology concept to the problem situation of reverse logistics in CSD and we have come out with the implement proposal to management as plan. The result not only can conform to CSD’s expectation of improvement to the problem situation but also let us benefit from learning the system thinking and the processes of SSM. Refer to the summary of this study, we have successfully submitted the proposal of improvement plan on both information control system and organization reengineer.
In SSM we have an approach for developing reverse logistics related information system and organization which has the potential to overcome the difficulty of reverse logistics management. We found that SSM is a good technique for process innovation, which makes it quite suitable for service organizations.
5.3 Suggestion for Future studies
We focused on solved the reverse logistics problems in real world situation of one Taiwanese EMS Company in China. From our study we found that SSM is a proper methodology to deal with uncertain and unstructured problem situation in this case although we cannot find many related theses in the universities of Taiwan or worldwide. Therefore, we refer to many other areas research such as the application of Civil Service, Product Marketing, Organization Change Program, Business Center Organization, Service Function, etc instead of Reverse logistics. For this reason, we suggest that the future research can use SSM in reverse logistics due to its attribute of complex and uncertain from management perspective. Due to the time and resource limitation, this study only chose one EMS Company to become the study unit. Therefore, our final suggest is that the future study can chose more companies in this field with the long-term tracking the implementation result to ensure the suggestion can be applied to the reverse logistics in entire EMS industry. As mentioned, the real world problem situation is changed and raised all the time, the study of SSM can continue to be applied in the reverse logistics management in future.
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