Podcast Summary:

Supply Chain Now – "From Afterthought to Advantage: Reverse Logistics at Enterprise Scale"
Date: October 13, 2025
Host: Scott Lewton, Supply Chain Now
Guests:

• Troy Campbell, Director of Reverse Logistics, Home Depot
• Dr. Glenn Ritchie, Eminent Scholar, Auburn University, Editor of the Journal of Business Logistics

Episode Overview

This episode, recorded at the Reverse Logistics Association (RLA) Leadership Summit in Dallas-Fort Worth, provides a deep dive into reverse logistics: the challenges, trends, and transformative innovations organizations are pursuing to elevate the strategic role of returns management. Scott Lewton speaks with two prominent industry voices, Troy Campbell and Dr. Glenn Ritchie, about practical realities, technology trends, talent development, and the evolving importance of reverse logistics within the broader supply chain landscape.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Reverse Logistics Association Leadership Summit & Industry Community

• Networking and Learning:
  • The RLA Summit is described as the “center of the universe for all things reverse” for the week, bringing together leaders, practitioners, vendors, and academics.
  • Campbell emphasizes the Summit’s value for real-world problem-solving and networking:

    "Not only learning a lot about reverse, but the networking piece is even bigger. It's the best place for..." (02:09)

2. Home Depot’s Reverse Logistics at Scale: Challenges and Innovations

• Role Overview:

  • Campbell oversees four major reverse logistics centers across Phoenix, PA, McDonough (GA), and Indianapolis, ranging from 400,000 to 1.1 million sq ft, with each managed by dedicated teams of associates. (04:43)
  • The teams’ core function: process unsorted, often unboxed, returned merchandise—cleaning, sorting, repackaging, and routing it for resale, recycling, or liquidation.

• Operational Complexity:

  • Reverse logistics is typically an “afterthought” in organizations, often built without state-of-the-art systems, resulting in ad hoc solutions and high complexity. Associates (the “blood of our work”) must use judgment on dispositioning, since not everything can be automated. (07:55)

• Automation & Its Limits:

  • Newer sites (like Pittston, PA) have higher degrees of automation, but unique challenges remain: returned items are far less standardized than outbound freight, making end-to-end automation very difficult.

    "Automation is tricky in reverse because the box is not a box when it gets returned." (06:30)

• Driving Efficiency & Value:

  • A key current focus: improving how items are sent back into the network to reduce costs, labor, and manual touchpoints. The goal is both operational (fewer touches, lower costs) and people-centric (make associates' work easier).

    "How can we give our associates easier, more successful days?" (10:34)

• Cross-Company Collaboration:

  • Regular knowledge exchange at events like the RLA Summit enhances best practice sharing and problem-solving, sometimes resulting in simple operational tweaks that yield big benefits for vendors and Home Depot alike (15:15).

3. Reverse Logistics – from Afterthought to Competitive Advantage

• Changing Perceptions:
  • Reverse logistics, historically described as the “dark side” by Tony Shirota, is shifting from an overlooked cost center to a strategic lever for value creation and sustainability. (08:47)
  • Practitioners like Campbell and organizations like Home Depot are openly sharing and seeking knowledge to accelerate industry maturity.

4. Trends and Research in Reverse Logistics (w/ Dr. Glenn Ritchie, Auburn University)

• Evolution of Reverse Logistics:

  • Early research (since 1999) focused on reducing returns, but today, the priority is maximizing value from returns and integrating them into the circular economy.

    "Now we're talking about maximizing your returns... It's a different mindset completely." (21:20)

• Revenue & Sustainability:

  • Returns are now seen as revenue and sustainability opportunities—encouraging returns to recapture value, reuse components, or efficiently recycle rare materials.

• AI & Data-Driven Optimization:

  • GenAI (generative AI) is being developed to crunch vast scenario data, helping supply chains become more adaptable, agile, and responsive to disruptions.

    "That's where generative AI comes in for us—looking at the environment, demand patterns, consumer behavior, and putting all of those together into real-time models." (24:32)

  • This approach is evolving after lessons learned during the Covid-19 pandemic, moving away from ultra-lean, brittle systems towards more flexible models.

• Customer Engagement in Reverse Logistics:

  • In the post-pandemic world, customers are more supply chain-aware and expect proactive communication, even for returns. Tools like real-time dashboards and order tracking (“WISMO: Where’s My Stuff?”) are crucial. (27:09)

• Sustainability as Operational Imperative:

  • Reverse logistics is cemented as the “foundation of sustainability.” Leaders must move past planning into operationalizing green initiatives.

    "Reverse logistics is the foundation of sustainability... It literally is the operational component that gets this done." (28:34)

5. Talent, Skills, and Academic Evolution

• Reverse Logistics as a Talent Magnet:

  • Students are increasingly drawn to reverse logistics for its sustainability focus and real-world impact. However, academic programming is still catching up: most universities only offer a brief focus, not a full course or track. (35:00)

• Impact of Automation on Logistics Work:

  • Past and ongoing research points to a major transformation in workforce requirements. As automation and AI handle more of the manual and routine work, future logistics professionals will need data analysis, system management, and coordination skills (rather than purely physical or transactional skills). (32:16)
  • Ritchie:

    "Maybe it's not moving things down the conveyor belt... It's being able to look at the data and manage those different things." (32:41)

• Academic-Industry Collaboration:

  • Joint efforts are underway (with universities in Sweden and elsewhere) to explore how AI incorporation will reshape skills, roles, and curriculum.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the centrality of people in reverse logistics:

  "They’re the blood of our work. They’re the ones doing every single bit of that returns, ugly freight, handling it... We make it look pretty on the outbound side.”
  —Troy Campbell, 04:43-05:15

• On the operational realities:

  “Reverse is nothing that any company really puts in their forefront. It’s always something that’s an afterthought... So we have to kinda, it’s clunky, we have to figure it out.”
  —Troy Campbell, 07:55-08:17

• On solution sharing:

  “I just want to provide any insight I can provide to any other leaders that are maybe new to the reverse business. Why should they stumble out of the gate if we… have what we’ve been doing now for 15 years?”
  —Troy Campbell, 11:36

• On the shift to value creation:

  "Now we don’t talk about it that way. Now we’re talking about maximizing your returns… moving toward a circular economy."
  —Dr. Glenn Ritchie, 21:14-21:22

• On AI-powered future:

  “Trying to predict what’s going to happen next means crunching an inordinate amount of data, right? That’s where generative AI comes in for us…”
  —Dr. Glenn Ritchie, 24:32

• On the urgency for implementation:

  "We’ve talked a lot about sustainability. I think we’re past that. Now we need to talk about how do we get it done."
  —Dr. Glenn Ritchie, 28:34

• On evolving workforce skills:

  “Maybe it’s not moving things down the conveyor belt... Maybe it's being able to look at data connected with that and manage those different things.”
  —Dr. Glenn Ritchie, 32:41

• Humorous takeaway (on reverse logistics as a profession):

  “So you're getting a PhD in being Fred Sanford? ...At that time period, there WAS a lot of that; now it's a major professional career.”
  —Dr. Glenn Ritchie, 36:36

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:17 – Introduction at RLA Leadership Summit and guest introduction
• 04:43 – Troy Campbell describes Home Depot’s reverse logistics operation
• 06:30 – Challenges of automating reverse logistics
• 07:55 – The complexity and afterthought nature of reverse logistics
• 09:19 – Trends Campbell is tracking (efficiency, reducing manual work, network flows)
• 10:53 – The “people first” philosophy and operational goals
• 15:14 – Practical examples of operational tweaks/solutions from event networking
• 17:20 – Dr. Glenn Ritchie introduction
• 19:43 – Ritchie’s role at Auburn and supply chain program
• 21:20 – Major shifts in reverse logistics focus since 1999
• 23:44 – Generative AI, lessons post-pandemic, scenario planning in supply chain
• 27:09 – Customer expectations and engagement in reverse logistics
• 28:34 – Reverse as the foundation of sustainability and operationalizing green goals
• 32:16 – How AI is transforming required logistics skills
• 34:27 – The ongoing importance of customer insight
• 35:00 – The need for more academic focus on reverse logistics
• 36:36 – Reverse/returns as a career; changes since the 1990s
• 37:37 – Students’ interest in sustainability-driven supply chains

Conclusion & How to Connect

Both Campbell and Ritchie underscore the ongoing shift of reverse logistics from a burdensome afterthought to a source of competitive, financial, and sustainability advantage. The future—powered by talent, technology, and collaboration—demands companies build robust return flows, invest in people, and never overlook the foundational role of reverse logistics in the modern, circular supply chain.

How to Connect:

• Troy Campbell: Best reached via email (listed in RLA member directory) rather than LinkedIn for operational questions.
• Dr. Glenn Ritchie: Connect on LinkedIn, email, or find his work through the Journal of Business Logistics.

Explore more:

• RLA (rla.org)
• National Retail Federation
• Journal of Business Logistics
• Supply Chain Now podcast and website

For supply chain professionals, this episode isn’t just a primer on reverse logistics—it’s a call to reimagine returns as a strategic, people-centric advantage at scale.