Oracle launches new reverse logistics management “suite”

Reverse logistics was top of mind at yesterday’s commencement of the annual Oracle OpenWorld conference in San Francisco.

To help organizations reduce the costs of tracking waste and comply with material control laws, Oracle announced a waste management solution for The Oracle E-Business Suite.

“In today’s economy, businesses and their supply chain partners must comply with material control laws in every single region in which they do business,” said Hannes Sandmeier, vice president of cMRO and depot repair development, Oracle. “To help our customers manage this complex and costly process, we are introducing a waste management solution.”

Extending the capabilities within Oracle Depot Repair, Oracle Transportation Management and Oracle Global Trade Management, the waste management software for the Oracle E-Business Suite automates and monitors waste management processes to help ensure that hazardous materials are tracked and handled in accordance with regulatory requirements.

Oracle’s waste management software for the Oracle E-Business Suite “leverages” Oracle Transportation Management and Oracle Global Trade Management, enabling shippers to view in-transit inventory across the extended supply chain, while also providing a single repository for all legal, regulatory and compliance related information.

According to spokesmen, the new E-Business Suite helps shippers profitably recover, re-use and recycle products and parts by providing tools and intelligence.

Among the advantages:

*Track and trace controlled materials from customer to final disposition, which is now required for legal compliance by any business that sells electronic products in the United States (U.S.), European Union (EU), Canada, China, India, South Korea, Taiwan or Japan for complying with waste management laws in those countries. Failure to comply leads to fines, lost revenue and brand reputation damage.

*Comply with international mandates for electronics, batteries, packaging, motor vehicles, products containing PCBs and PCTs, and medical waste.
View all return streams, material types and dispositions, put-on-market data and recovery cost.

*Generate service bulletins that provide location-specific rules, paperwork and compliance instructions, along with checklists to capture electronic signatures for compliance tasks.

*Track returns by European Waste Catalogue (EWC) codes or business-specific disposition taxonomy.

*Send automated return instructions to customers when return requests are created.

*Track costs and value recovered from re-use and recycling.

*Aggregates the data from engineering, manufacturing, sales, returns, reverse supply chain operations, logistics and third party processing partners to enable compliance with the different data, data formats and reporting periods required by each EU country, U.S. state, Canadian province and numerous other countries.

“By helping shippers automatically track and document the movement of materials, the new product streamlines waste management processes and significantly increases visibility,” said Sandmeier. “This will help supply chain managers create new revenue opportunities, reduce costs and avoid fines.”