Reverse Logistics: Impact of Customer Interaction on the Supply Value Chain and Supplier Core Competences - Cern as a Case

Traditionally, logistics is perceived as managing the supply of goods or services from the producer to the (end) customer. In the research literature, the products considered are often standard or global by nature and are associated with only limited amount of tacit knowledge. Little research literature exists on how to manage the delivery of highly customer-driven high tech products and, in particular, what type of feedback effects such transactions have on the supplier value chain. The focus of this paper is on the latter, namely on the value chain feedback effects of delivering high tech, customer-driven products. This effect is known as "reverse logistics" in the context of modelling organizational learning using the value chain as a conceptual tool. As a case, supplies to CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, are studied in more detail. In the light of collected empirical evidence, a number of issues are addressed. First, what type of impact does interaction with scientific customers have on supplier value chain activities? Can such customers be a source of complementary assets and enhanced core competences? Second, in what way do possible CERN-induced value chain feedback effects differ from those triggered by other, optimal transactions? Third, what corrective measures are required to re-optimize the value chain activities? And finally, what implications would such feedback effects have on considerations of international/global logistics?