Reverse logistics and retrograde
Bringing equipment home, and deciding what should not come home
Withdrawal is harder to plan than deployment. Equipment has dispersed, some of it is contaminated, some is no longer worth the freight it would take, and the country it is leaving has its own rules about what may go and what must stay.
We count what is actually there, clean and certify it for re-entry, and separate what returns from what is disposed of locally.
What this covers, in full
Recovery
- Equipment recovery and repatriation from theatre
- Redeployment between theatres
- Asset recovery
Preparation for re-entry
- Cleaning, decontamination and refurbishment before re-importation
- Repair and return loops
Disposal
- Obsolete stock management
- Demilitarisation coordination
- Recycling under the applicable environmental rules
Hazardous material
- Removal of fuel, oils and hazardous waste
How the work runs, in three steps
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Count it before planning it
A physical inventory comes first. A retrograde plan built on the deployment record is wrong from the outset, because that record stopped being accurate on the first day of the operation.
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Certify at origin, not at the border
Agricultural, environmental and customs inspection at the receiving end is where retrograde cargo sits. Cleaning and certification are done before the cargo leaves.
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Give every item one of three outcomes
Return, dispose, or sell. Each item is assigned one of the three, with the reason recorded, before anything moves.
Across every area
What comes with the work, whatever the operation is
These are not a separate service line and they are not charged as one.
- One point of contact
- A named coordinator holds the file across ports, countries and service lines, and does not hand it on halfway through.
- Screening and counterparty checks
- Suppliers and subcontractors are checked against sanctions lists before use, and their ownership is rechecked when it changes.
- Anti-bribery applied outward
- The policy binds our suppliers as well as us. Where a payment is expected that we will not make, the client hears about it.
- Tenders and framework agreements
- Support to tender submissions, and management of the framework once it is in place, including its reporting obligations.
- Cost control and consolidated billing
- Costs broken down by port call, mission or deployment. One invoice, with every underlying document available behind it.
- Insurance and risk
- Insurance coordination including war risk, and risk assessment for personnel movements into difficult jurisdictions.
Tell us what the operation needs, and where
Ports, airfields, dates, volumes. Whatever is fixed so far is enough to start from.