Exploring inter-organizational relationships within the remanufacturing of automotive components

Being a remanufacturer of automotive components may be problematic due toproblems with a steady flow of cores. The flow could be secured by making agreementswith core suppliers, which could be an OEM, a core broker or another actor on themarket. The remanufacturer can also choose to collect the cores without closercollaboration. One crucial aspect in choosing how to collect the cores is that it has to belucrative.The aim of this paper is to explore how remanufacturers manage their interorganizationalrelationships in the closed-loop supply chain. A case study was conductedwithin the European research project CAN-Reman, and empirical data was collected fromsix participating companies within the project, all European remanufacturers ofautomotive components. These companies were investigated, and their relationships,defined in earlier research with core suppliers, were evaluated.A key finding of the research is that the most problematic parameter withinrelationships is to receive the ordered quantity of cores from the supplier. This parameteris continually ranked as one of the most important, and the participating companies alsoclaim that they have problems with it. A successful relationship and take-back system thathas been pointed out by one of the companies is to never be the owner of the actual cores,and only perform the remanufacturing activity for an OEM.
CAN-Reman