Proceedings of the 2012 International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management Istanbul, Turkey, July 3 – 6, 2012

Car Recalls: A Problem Unique to Toyota or For All Car Makers?
Kamrul Ahsan School of Management and Information Systems, Faculty of Business and Law Victoria University Australia Abstract
Often automobile recalls are drawing media and public attention. Influenced by Toyota’s recent automobile recalls 2009-2010 this research conducts an empirical study on historical car recalls. The research uses secondary data from recall websites maintained by public and private organizations. For different car model year and manufacturer the study looks at frequency of recalls, recorded customer complaints, and yearly sales data. Analysis shows recalls are a common event with the majority of recalls initiated by only a few car makers. Though car makers use many eye catching and popular quality and customer care slogans and programs, many popular car makers still face valid customer complaints and consequently face many unwanted recalls. This study identifies that most recalls occur during the first five years of the car model year. This preliminary study of automobile recalls can be further extended at a later stage to identify key causes of recall.

Keywords
Product recalls, Reverse logistics, car recalls, product returns, closed loop supply chain

1. Introduction
Though manufacturers use state-of-the-art operations philosophies, tools and techniques, it is difficult to make the perfect product and products often need to be recalled. Recalls occur when the customer or the manufacturer or the government safety ensuring authority identifies a serious product defect or fault as a health hazard or as risky to use. Recalls are a consequence of a bad quality product which the manufacturer did not address or was unaware of before distribution