Circular economy of spare parts and data-driven analytics - “Unlocking Sustainable Value: Analyzing Buyback Policy Circularity Performance in Volvo Group’s Reverse Supply Chain - A Renault Trucks Case Study”

Sammanfattning: To address the current environmental challenges, companies are steadily shifting from a linear to a circular model in their daily operations. This process implies supplementing the traditional forward logistics with a reverse flow, enabling the reuse, remanufacturing, and recycling of existing products. Yet, managing these reverse flows effectively poses a big major challenge for any firm. This factor necessitates the development of an efficient performance measure system, to achieve operational excellence. This thesis aims to explore a specific type of reverse flows within the focal company known as a buyback policy. The key objective is to produce a data-driven analytical solution that will measure the circular economy performance of buyback operations. To achieve this objective, mixed methods research was conducted, particularly a single case study. The process entailed deriving insights from findings obtained by qualitative research methods, such as literature review and semi-structured interviews. These findings were further used as a foundation for the quantitative analysis, which included establishing performance metrics and developing an analytical solution. The suggested solution was then validated by applying it to historical data related to selected groups of dealers with various profiles. As a result, several challenges were identified in the current system setup of the buyback policy. The challenges became a backbone for determining six distinct metrics and supporting analytics. This combination shapes a complete analytical solution that covers all three principles of the circular economy notion: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Finally, the proposed analytical solution allowed to quantify the potential for optimizing the buyback policy within the focal company. This enables stakeholders to make data-driven decisions, providing valuable insights into the operational activities of buybacks. The solution presented fills the gap in the previously missing circularity performance measurement system for this return type within the focal firm. Furthermore, the findings of the thesis contribute to the theoretical understanding of circularity performance measurement in the context of reverse logistics in the automotive industry, as there is a paucity of existing papers on this topic.