Reverse Supply Chain, Service Supply Chain Testing and Screening
Converge offers organizations a comprehensive reverse supply chain testing and screening inspection process to review materials received through the reverse supply chain for no trouble found (NTF), no fault found (NFF) and potential warranty returns. Materials are sorted, inspected and tested to manufacturer specifications to determine if value can be recovered through warranty credits, intelligent redeployment into the service supply chain or remarketing on the secondary market.
Our experience in reverse supply chain solutions has found significant NTF and NFF rates. These returns have been intelligently reintroduced into organizations’ supply chains, helping the organizations recover millions of dollars from materials once considered acceptable waste.
Converge observes recovery of scrap materials by commodity at the following rates, on average:
- 40% no-trouble found for hard drives
- 64% no-trouble found for memory
Materials that are tested and meet strict manufacturer specifications are transferred back into the service environment through the service supply chain (not returned to the production environment), thus reducing the need to purchase additional materials on the open market to fulfill service requirements.
Testing process
Converge utilizes the same hardware and software platforms as leading original device manufacturers for all reverse supply chain testing and screening purposes, applying manufacturer-audited and manufacturer-approved processes for key commodities such as microprocessors, hard disk drives, memory modules and liquid crystal displays (LCDs). All milestones of this process are automated and tied to manufacturer-provided business rules and reference data — guaranteeing nonsubjective results.
Field returns
Our field-return component disposition program includes:
- De-trashing
- Product identification
- Physical inspection
- Functional testing
- Failure analysis
- Warranty determination
- RMA management
- Service-supply routing
- Repeat-return management
- Asset recovery
- Recycling processes
We identify each component, provide part substitution logic as necessary (based on market conditions), determine warranty condition for each module tested and route the modules accordingly. Product is sorted and classified by NTF (no trouble found), IWTY (in warranty), RMA and OWTY (out of warranty), and scrap/obsolete.
For NTF product, we run repeat-return logic programs to pinpoint and disqualify intermittently failing components and then properly recycle them to industry standards. All data collected is shared with part owners and manufacturers, which allows Converge to work with various component manufacturers to help improve their manufacturing quality QA processes.
Quality assurance and engineering reports include:
- Receipt and identification of data
- Failure analysis data tied back to origin
- Incoming volume data tied back to origin
- VRR (verified repeat return) data based on unique identifiers
- Yield data tied back to origin
- CID (customer-induced damage) data tied back to origin
- Multiple data-exchange and quality data-reporting options
- Customized reports as requested by partner
For more information on Converge’s testing and screening services, contact us.