Reverse Logistics
There were no case studies presented in Chapter 3. The author cites a few, and provides one- or two-sentence descriptions, but nowhere in Chapter 3 does the author illustrate a complete case study from which conclusions about reverse logistics methodology can be drawn. Instead, Chapter 3 was a review of case studies, wherein the author utilized studies found in academic journals, rejecting what is actually being done by people with money in the game in reverse logistics. This methodology has its merits -- the author is correct that academic case studies will follow a fairly similar format that is reliable and theoretically free from bias. The author also found that academic case studies are sufficient in number to draw conclusions. For example, the author cited under IT for reverse logistics four case studies for "customer," two for "manufacturing" and three for "distribution." While I disagree that it makes sense to rule out real world case studies, on the obvious premise that reverse logistics is a real world field, not a hypothetical one, the author appears to have gathered enough data from the available academic case studies to make some conclusions about reverse logistics.
This creates some problems when attempting to evaluate a case study. For example, on p.100, under Section 3.7.1, the author notes a case study on Canada Post by Duhaime, but there is only a single sentence of material, describing the general situation. What we would need is to have information about what Canada Post is actually doing with respect to this situation, in order to evaluate how well Canada Post is performing its reverse logistics....
The author does not provide this.
Where this creates issue is that the author has not provided any insight or knowledge in their paper, at least through the first three chapters. Given the length of the paper, there is hope yet. But mentioning that case studies exist adds nothing to the understanding of reverse logistics -- value would be added by selecting only a small handful of case studies, providing full information walking the reader from start to finish, and then noting how this case study contributes to the overall body of knowledge. Instead, the author has provided an annotated bibliography, without any further analysis of the case study material, how such material contributes to the field of study, or what can be learned by a student by understanding the scenario that the case study presents.
The author has in previous chapters outlined a basic methodological framework for understanding reverse logistics cases. This should have been applied to the cases by the author. It is possible that further in the tome this would have occurred. But the instructions posit that there are cases in Chapter 3, and this is incorrect. This makes it rather difficult to provide an analysis of a case, with there not being a case to begin with. The irony here is that the author specifically cites that cases are better than "mere examples" (p.81), because they provide more detail. While this is true, the author then name-drops 60 cases, providing no real detail on any of them.
Now, should a case study have been provided, it would have been possible to analyze the methodology used in the case study. Arguably, the…
