A simplistic but the quite useful view of supply chains is that they
consist of a number of flows so we typically talk of forward or downstream
flows of products material going to the end-user to to a final customer we talk
of upstream or reverse flows which are typically information flows data flows
demand data consumption data and so on and then the third flow is money flow
and that's normally the flow of money upstream so it's customers essentially
paying suppliers on a non national onto a so on upstream reverse flows in
commercial supply chains have become quite prominent or increasingly so in
recent years driven by a number of things legislation so increasingly
legislation is placing responsibility on original equipment manufacturers and
manufacturers in general to take greater responsibility for doing something
appropriate with their products at their end of their useful service lives
there's a growing awareness of the concept of the circular economy and
increasingly people complying with the circular economy rather than the
traditional linear economy I'm also seeing a growth in product returns
so typically online shopping online retail the the internet seen a huge
growth not only in that kind of trading but in products going back to the
supplier and that has had a side effect of increasing money flows downstream so
essentially money going back to the consumer so that's why they've become
really quite significant in in commercial supply chains
routine but challenging well they are routine to defense logisticians defense
logisticians for decades have been quite accustomed to managing reverse flows
what makes them routine well in steady-state operations it's quite
normal to see for any given operation significant volumes of shusei engines
major assemblies major subsystems being taken out of vehicles aircraft and so on
and being pushed upstream reverse flowing back too often back to the UK
mainland or to the some of the depth facility usually to undertake or be
subject to some particular kind of maintenance repair and overhaul in
enduring operations any any military operation with with
some some endurance some length to it will normally see military units quite
routinely rotating it's its approach it's a process known as a relief in
place the military also speak about rule amant and it's where one unit is taken
out of theater and replaced by another and it's quite typical for that unit as
it goes out of theater to take all of its equipment with it quite a major
logistic reverse flow operation if you if you imagine a major coalition
operation with several nations involved then it's not unusual for one partner
coalition partner nation to exit theater with all of its equipment all of its
inventory all of its logistics infrastructure quite a significant
reverse movement and to be replaced by the replacing partner nation and I think
finally really the other aspect of routine activity is is in drawdown when
military forces progressively reduce their presence in anticipation of a
cessation of hostilities and an end to the operation and so you'll see a
progressive reduction a reverse flow of in particular static warehoused
type storage and and inventory so inventory volumes will flow backwards as
those four progressively drawdown the challenges to
that relatively routine business well a lot of military equipment is quite
sensitive and so rather than move it by potentially vulnerable and insecure
surface means most militaries will choose to use strategic airlift and the
problem with strategic airlift is that there's not much of it and it's in heavy
demand so you need to prioritize and it requires very careful management reverse
flows the flows out of theater have to be balanced with forward flows the flows
into theater because although you might see forces progressively drawing down
inevitably there is the prospect of increased enemy activity some maybe some
political vacillation or prolonging of the of the operation and what you can
therefore see is a it's a real challenging in managing the balance of
the flows the majority of it may be upstream in Reverse but there will
always be the need to sustain troops who are currently deployed and getting that
balance right can be very very taxing very challenging and and frankly no
matter how brilliantly you plan the reverse flows it can all go horribly
wrong if the enemy has a vote and they ramp up their activity or indeed
political indecision leads to a prolongation of the of the operation and
so you can actually see those reverse flows carefully planned as they were
stopping dead or at least being significantly disrupted so very
challenging business and I think it also fair to say that inevitably for any
defense business any defense ministry and its Armed Forces those strategic
movement assets that control both forward and reverse flows will be in
huge demand there are never enough and when you consider for example in a
perhaps a many nation coalition operation you could see several nations
competing for very limited airspace many people will be aware for example that
the Camp Bastion in Afghanistan for several years was one of the busiest
airfields in the world and so vomiting for air space can be a
very significant challenge but likewise road networks rail networks port
infrastructure everybody's trying to use a relatively limited range of facilities
so I think cooperation collaboration careful commander control is is
fundamental a success and I think I would conclude by saying that defense
logisticians do this stuff routinely and I would suggest that given the growth in
reverse flows in the commercial logistics business that commercial
logisticians can learn a lot from defense logisticians
you