Unilog.SC Publishes September 2026 Industry Research Report, Examining What Right to Repair Means for Service Operations

New report identifies four operations manufacturers need to address as repair documentation, spare parts, repair capacity, and refurbished part history become accessible to independent repairers and customers

LYNBROOK, N.Y., Sept. 28, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Unilog.SC, a global supply chain orchestration and execution company, today announced the release of its September 2026 Industry Research Report, The stranger who wants your manual. What right to repair looks like on an ordinary Tuesday. The article explains how new repair rules in Europe and the U.S. are giving independent repairers, refurbishers, and customers access to service operations that were built for internal use, and the role service and supply chain teams play in meeting new requirements to share repair information, supply spare parts, and support independent repair.

In the EU, the Directive on the repair of goods has applied since July 31, 2026, and ecodesign rules for servers and data storage products already require repair information to be provided to third parties on registration. As a result, manufacturers can expect requests from repairers they have never worked with. The report finds that most service organizations are not set up to answer them, because their manuals, part numbers, grading language, and repair capacity were only designed for the company's internal technicians.

“Right to repair is often treated as a regulatory or documentation issue, but the real challenge is operational,” said Eyal Yossef, VP Supply Chain Solutions at Unilog.SC. “When an external user requests a manual, a customer needs a part, or a refurbished component goes back into service, the organization needs to know who owns that process, where the information lives and whether the physical capability exists to deliver on the promise. The companies that are prepared will have those answers before the request arrives.”

Key findings include:

• Service documentation has to work for external technicians. Manuals written for in-house teams rely on internal part numbers, proprietary tools, and undocumented steps. Rewriting them for third parties takes technical authoring skills most service organizations have never needed.
• Spare parts catalogs are becoming public commitments. EU rules require spare parts a manufacturer offers to be priced so they do not deter repair. Companies need a deliberate decision on what they supply, to whom, at what lead time, and for how long.
• Repair capacity is physical infrastructure. Repair depends on benches, calibrated testers, and trained people. Losing the test rig for a discontinued platform can turn every failure on that installed base into a replacement.
• Refurbished parts need traceable history and consistent grading. Serial-level history must travel with every second-life part, and grading terms must mean the same thing in every depot and in customer contracts.

The report outlines a practical repair readiness checklist built around documentation, parts, process and traceability. Among the recommended first steps are identifying and assigning ownership of repair-information request channels, testing service procedures with unfamiliar engineers, documenting the location and ownership of test equipment for discontinued platforms, and reconstructing the history of refurbished units in inventory.

The article also examines how logistics providers can expand repair capacity. Much of what gets booked as repair, including firmware updates, battery cycling, module swaps, kitting, hardware revision upgrades, and the recovery and testing of decommissioned assets, does not require specialist engineers. A skilled 4PL can perform this work inside the warehouses where inventory already sits, avoiding a return trip to a central depot and reserving in-house expertise for the failures that need it.

The full September 2026 Industry Research Report, “The Stranger Who Wants Your Manual: What Right to Repair Looks Like on an Ordinary Tuesday,” is available here. 

To learn more about Unilog.SC, visit Unilog.SC.

About Unilog.SC

Unilog.SC is a global supply chain orchestration and execution company delivering end-to-end logistics and fulfillment solutions through the combination of human expertise and its advanced Logivice™ control tower platform and Ucontrol™ real-time visibility and smart tracking platform. Operating across 500+ active storage and DC locations worldwide, Unilog.SC provides real-time visibility, inventory and order management, reverse logistics, and a broad range of value-added and global trade services including kitting, relabeling, repairs, compliance support and Global Trade Services. Recognized by Gartner® as one of the top 17 global service providers included in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Fourth-Party Logistics (4PL), Unilog helps organizations simplify complex global operations, improve resilience, and scale with confidence.

Serving critical and demanding industries such as high-tech, cybersecurity, medical equipment, telecommunications, automotive, semiconductors, digital and 3D printing, data centers, and energy, Unilog.SC combines advanced technology with experienced supply chain professionals to transform operational complexity into business growth. Headquartered in Lynbrook, New York, Unilog.SC enables organizations worldwide to achieve greater visibility, agility, and execution across their supply chains.

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