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Reverse Logistics and Circular Economy

Helping customers meet global regulatory compliance, maximize value recovery, and achieve sustainability goals

Case study: Maximizing value and saving costs through a circular, global business model

Flex employees performing circular economy services

A Cloud, Enterprise, and Communications (CEC) customer aimed to open new revenue streams by maximizing the value of defective products and ensuring certified warranty on refurbished units.

Needing a solution spanning their global operations, they turned to Flex for a root cause failure analysis and services spanning repair, refurbishment, and parts harvesting. Layered with our trade expertise and global and regional presence, we processed 110,000 units globally and helped the customer save $40 million per year. We also improved yield and implemented Temporary Import for Repair (TIFR) and Temporary Export for Repair (TEFR) to reduce tariff and scrap spends.

我们提供综合反向物流和循环经济服务,这些服务由我们的智能报告和测量工具、法规遵从性知识以及全球和区域业务提供支持。Our expertise enables customers to confidently meet their sustainability and business goals while responding to ever increasing regulations that require traceability of materials reused or disposed of.

From an initial assessment of carbon emissions to data-driven support of repair, refurbishment, and recovery decisions, our capabilities help customers identify the optimal path forward and craft the right strategy for their service and sustainability needs.

可持续发展分析

Implementing an effective circular economy solutions strategy requires leveraging the power of data.

Circale digital circularity platform

Our suite of leading financial and environmental modeling tools, including our award-winning Flex ECO2™ and our digitized circularity platform Circale, helps customers quantify how our circular interventions can reduce emissions and drive resource productivity.

Reverse logistics, returns, and screening

Returns and screening

Recovering value from returned products across enterprise, retail, and consumer channels requires a trusted returns and screening process.

Flex provides a range of capabilities to enhance the customer experience and returns visibility while maximizing value recovery. Our services include customer returns process management, returns logistics to the receipt, and product registration and screening.

售后退货、维修和回收服务

维修和翻新

Investing in repair and refurbishment capabilities to prolong the product lifecycle has become an important customer service and sustainability pillar for many brands.

凭借全球各地的可配置、可扩展作业,我们提供优质的技术维修和翻新服务,专为满足特定的交货期、服务和成本目标。我们的维修和翻新服务凭借对于产品和服务流程的洞察得以持续优化。

asset recovery and reuse for circular economy

资产回收和再利用

许多公司认识到产品在生命周期结束时剩余的内在价值。

Additionally, these practices contribute to a waste and emissions reduction strategy. 我们所有工厂都提供零件收集服务和备件物流,并且与一个由众多回收合作伙伴组成的全球网络相连接。

Product and parts resale

E-commerce strategies have evolved to incorporate circular business models that open new revenue streams, improve brand reputation, and meet growing consumer demands.

FreeFlow, A Flex Marketplace

As a scalable business-to-business marketplace for inventory management, FreeFlow enables streamlined remarketing efforts to optimize surplus inventory.

FreeFlow provides access to channels that maximize recovery and extend the product lifecycle while retaining complete control over pricing and the buying process with rigorous controls and transparency.

回收

回收

Recycling, especially e-waste, requires a partner who has the regulatory expertise, global reach, data security, and scalability to derive the benefits of reducing scrap.

Flex manages recycling services and a recycling supplier network to ensure full compliance with the custody chain of materials, product part traceability, and intellectual property protection while advancing sustainability.

Collaborating across industries to advance a closed-loop future

Ellen MacArthur Foundation: A member since 2021, Flex joined the network to drive solutions leveraging the latest circular economy, research, and trends. 

Reverse Logistics Association: Joining as a member in 2024, Flex engages in a community network for manufacturers, retail companies, and third-party providers to educate and promote reverse logistics globally.

Recognition for our leading reverse logistics and circular economy services

Sustainability Environmental Achievement & Leadership
Circular economy SEAL award

Highlighting our leadership, innovation, and commitment to sustainable business practices, we were honored with a SEAL Award in the Sustainable Service category for our circular economy solutions and intelligent CO2 analytics.

Environment + Energy Project of the Year Award
Circular economy Environment + Energy award

Honoring Flex ECO2™, our proprietary calculator that assists customers in measuring, reporting, and achieving climate goals through circular economy services, we were recognized with an Environment + Energy Top Project of the Year Award.

Factories admitted to the Global Lighthouse Network
Flex Global Lighthouse Network factory

Leveraging advanced manufacturing technologies, Sorocaba transforms e-waste and reintroduces repurposed materials into the product lifecycle through repair, parts and materials harvesting, and recycling. This decade-long journey earned Sorocaba its designation as the first by the World Economic Forum.

Reverse logistics, returns, and screening

Comprehensive returns management

Our returns process management ensures that every return — whether from excess, end-of-life, channel, or other sources — is handled efficiently, securely, and in-compliance with applicable laws and regulations. From the moment a return is initiated, we manage the entire process and customer experience, ensuring that products move through the system quickly, safely, and with customer satisfaction.

Warranty

Warranty management

We facilitate the organized processing of warranty claims to ensure that products adhere to defined conditions, thereby enhancing customer satisfaction, reducing costs, and ensuring compliance.

数据分析图标

Detailed product screening and diagnostics

We provide fast, reliable, and consistent screening, including in-warranty screening, product registration, testing, and visual mechanical inspection to minimize costs associated with poor problem diagnoses.

Returns exchange solutions

Advanced exchange

Our returns exchange solutions enable a timely turnaround while reducing some repair costs, leveraging low-cost regions to repair and refurbish.

Partner with Flex to access a comprehensive reverse logistics and returns management system — all supported by a suite of sustainability analytics tools and services to navigate the complexities of product returns and screening and customer service operations.

Case study: Establishing a reverse logistics solution with end-to-end traceability

Flex recycled plastics at our facilities in Mexico

With more than one million second-life devices to process, a lifestyle customer faced product return and reverse logistics challenges in new markets and needed more visibility into product data to support recycled material goals.

Leveraging the findings from our failure analysis labs, Flex provided a new product design, global reverse logistics, and an end-to-end supply chain solution with full product IP protection. Over three million units were recycled in 2023 with traceability from parts harvesting to pick-up to recycling to reintegration into products for resell.

How product repair and refurbishment can help you:

Reduce operating cost

Reduced costs

Helps customers minimize inventory of new items while creating new revenue streams and cost savings, particularly for high-value or complex products.

可持续发展

可持续发展

Helps customers embrace the sustainable benefits of services like parts-harvesting, meet evolving regulatory requirements, and quantify environmental savings to drive resource productivity.

Repair and refurbishment circular economy capabilities from Flex

Case study: Advancing circular economy with a post-sale solution, reducing 7,650 Tons of CO2e

For a leading floorcare company looking to progress their circular economy journey, Flex implemented a standardized post sale solution that included repair, refurbishment, returns, spare parts planning, and more. This approach generated new channels to market while supporting a more circular business model for distributing products in the U.S. and Europe. As a result, the company avoided 7,650 tons of CO2e, which is equivalent to taking over 4,000 cars off the road for a year.

Advanced IT systems for efficient repair tracking

To ensure the timely repair and delivery of products, we invest in advanced IT systems that track components used in the repair process. Our integrated IT system provides real-time updates on the status of repairs, ensuring transparency and accountability at every stage. This system also helps in managing inventory, tracking the availability of harvested parts, and ensuring that the right components are used for each repair job.

Integrated logistics for coordinated movement of products

Our integrated logistics capabilities ensure that repaired products are delivered in a timely manner. We understand the importance of minimizing downtime and strive to provide quick turnaround times without compromising on quality. Our logistics team works closely with our repair technicians to coordinate the efficient movement of products, from the moment they arrive at our facility to their final delivery. 

回收和再利用

Secure asset recovery

Flex’s asset recovery solutions operate at the commodity level, ensuring that valuable components and products are efficiently reclaimed.

We maintain strict compliance with the custody chain of materials, providing full product part traceability to guarantee transparency and accountability throughout the recovery process.

Additionally, we prioritize intellectual property (IP) protection, safeguarding sensitive information and proprietary technologies as we recover and recycle components.

Case study: Refurbishing off-lease products, achieving cost and environmental savings

Recovery, resale, and recycling circular economy solutions from Flex

A consumer devices customer needed to more efficiently manage inventory of off-lease commercial IT equipment, such as laptops, desktops, and servers. Along with our refurbishment services, Flex facilitated a secondary market, refurbishing more than 12,000 units, including 3,900 parts replacements.

The customer benefitted from a new revenue stream by reselling to new group of customers. In addition, our partnership progressed the customer’s sustainability goals, with an estimated avoidance of 75–80% of CO2 emissions compared to producing new products.

Parts harvesting

Parts harvesting enables companies to source, repurpose, and reintroduce components into the supply chain. Flex offers harvesting services and spare parts logistics where customers have access to our global network of recovery partners. By harvesting parts from post-sale products or excess inventory, we help our customers future-proof their businesses and supply chains while achieving sustainability benefits.

Expertise in recycling e-waste

Our cross-industrial expertise and best-in-class recycling partners enable us to safely dispose of hazardous materials in recycled electronics while recovering value. We’re equipped to help customers tackle data collection and management challenges, ensuring compliance with regulations.

循环经济解决方案:回收

Flex prioritizes key attributes in recycling partners, including: 

  • Transparency via permits, certifications, and material visibility
  • High recovery rates (ideally over 90%) and minimal landfill use
  • Sustainable practices like closed-loop recovery, recycled content, low-to-zero carbon processes, and low toxicity methods

Connecting customers to new end markets through product and parts resale

A key component of our asset recovery and recycling services is enabling our customers to resell products, either through their own channels or by partnering with Flex. This approach not only maximizes the value of post-sale products but also supports a more sustainable and circular economy.

Flex employees refurbishing products as part of PaaS offering

Product as a Service (PaaS) model

The majority of sold products do not return to the seller, a key challenge in achieving circularity. One effective strategy is enabling retained product ownership through a PaaS model. Flex helps facilitate PaaS through asset re-use and refurbishment, allowing assets to continue generating service revenue and achieving sustainability benefits. Flex is uniquely positioned to test, upgrade, and recondition devices close to the market, enabling quick and cost-effective turnaround while providing valuable feedback for future design improvements.

FreeFlow, A Flex Marketplace

FreeFlow

As a scalable business-to-business marketplace for inventory management, FreeFlow enables streamlined remarketing efforts to optimize surplus inventory. FreeFlow provides access to channels that maximize recovery and extend the product lifecycle while retaining complete control over pricing and the buying process with rigorous controls and transparency.

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