价格和服务双因素影响的供应链协调决策模型研究

以单个制造商和存在竞争的两个零售商组成的供应链结构模型为研究对象,建立价格和服务两个重要因素影响的市场需求函数,研究供应链协调决策模型。以销售价格、服务质量和制造商批发价格作为三个决策变量,分析集中决策和分散决策两种情景的最优策略,研究收益共享、服务成本分担、收益共享成本分担等三种不同契约的供应链协调问题,并使用数值仿真方法,分析了相关参数变化对系统协调的影响。仿真结果表明:收益共享契约和成本分担契约需满足一定条件才能达到供应链协调,但其效果不一定实现帕累托最优;收益共享和成本分担契约可实现供应链协调,但收入共享系数需在合理区间取值;改进的收益共享成本分担契约能够避免共享系数的盲区,更加有效地达到供应链协调,保持供应链良好运行。     

Call,put and bidirectional option contracts in agricultural supply chains with sales effort

This paper develops option contracts in a supplier-retailer agricultural supply chain where the market demand depends on sales effort. First, we examine a benchmark case of integrated supply chain with the loss rate. Second, we introduce three coordinating option contracts led by the supplier to reduce the retailer's risk, where the call option contract can reduce the shortage risk, the put option contract can reduce the inventory risk and the bidirectional option contract can reduce the bilateral risk. We find that both the optimal initial order quantity and the optimal option quantity increase with the sales effort and the option price will balance the influence of the loss rate on supply chain coordination. Furthermore, the bidirectional option price is the highest while its option quantity is the least, and the put option initial order quantity is the highest. Third, we also consider an option contract led by the retailer to reduce the supplier's wholesale risk. Among the above four option contracts, we find that the option quantity led by the retailer is the highest. Finally, the numerical examples present the impact of the parameters on the optimal decisions, and provide practical managerial insights to reduce the different risk in the agricultural supply chain.     

The Effect of Acceptance Sampling and Risk Aversion on the Quality Delivered by Suppliers

Firms often use acceptance sampling to monitor the quality of the raw materials and components delivered by suppliers. In this paper, we use numerical methods to examine how a risk averse supplier reacts to the acceptance sampling plan used by a customer. We assume that the supplier produces and delivers a quality level that maximizes the supplier's expected utility. We examine the sensitivity of the optimal delivered quality to changes in the price, to changes in the supplier's level of risk aversion, and to changes in the parameters of the customer's sampling plan. We conclude that risk averse suppliers deliver higher quality, that higher capability suppliers do not necessarily deliver higher quality, and that the optimal quality is sensitive to the lot size. We also conclude that since the risk of rejection motivates suppliers to improve quality, customers have an economic justification for using acceptance sampling even when there is no statistical justification.     

Contract and product quality in platform selling

More and more e-tailers (platforms) are allowing manufacturers direct access to customers. Two common contracts are offered by platforms to manufacturers: the revenue sharing contract where a platform appropriates a portion of the manufacturer’s revenue, and the fixed fee contract where a platform charges a fixed rent for each sale. Using an analytical model, this paper studies the interrelationship between a platform’s contract choice and a manufacturer’s product quality decision. We find that if product quality is exogenously given, the platform will always adopt the revenue sharing contract. If the manufacturer endogenously decides the quality, however, the platform’s contract choice may be changed. This is because the revenue sharing contract, compared to fixed fee, leads to a lower selling price of the manufacturer, whereas the fixed fee contract can motivate a higher quality than does revenue sharing. As a result, a large (small) market heterogeneity induces the platform to adopt the revenue sharing (fixed fee) contract. We also extend the model to several directions, finding that longer product line, manufacturer competition, lower marginal production cost, and higher platform cost all tend to induce the platform to put forward a fixed fee contract; while if quality decision is less flexible than contract decision, the platform is more ready to embrace revenue sharing. Besides, when there are two platforms competing for the same market, they should differentiate their contract choices so as to mitigate competition.     

Coordinating a three-stage supply chain with competing manufacturers

It is common for multiple manufacturers to compete in one common market. This paper considers a three-stage supply chain consisting of two competing manufacturers, one distributor, and one retailer. The two manufacturers’ products are substitutable with each other, and both manufacturers sell their products through the common distributor and the common retailer. In this supply chain, three contract mechanisms are discussed. The first one is wholesale-price (WP) contracts. The second one is pairwise revenue-sharing (PRS) contracts indicating that the revenues are shared by all pairs of adjacent entities. The third one is spanning revenue-sharing (SRS) contract indicating that the retailer simultaneously shares his revenues with all supply chain members. First, we discuss the effects of competition between manufacturers on both decentralized and centralized supply chains under the WP contracts. Second, we discuss the coordination mechanisms. The PRS and SRS contracts are used to coordinate the entire supply chain. We present the drawbacks of the PRS contracts in coordinating this competing supply chain and suggest using the SRS contract instead. After an SRS contract is adopted, it is evaluated using the WP contracts as a benchmark. The conditions necessary for an SRS contract to achieve a win–win outcome are then presented. Finally, some numerical examples are provided.     

防范经理事后隐藏信息的模型研究

首先,指出了经理隐匿信息的道德风险行为对所有者的危害性.其次,构造了一个防范经理在签约后隐匿信息的报酬契约.再次,在委托代理框架下给出了契约的最优解.最后,分析了最优契约的特征与性质.文章得到的一些结论对经理选任聘任机制和报酬激励机制的设计有一定的参考价值.     

First- and second-price sealed-bid auctions applied to push and pull supply contracts

We investigate a newsvendor-type retailer sourcing problem under demand uncertainty who has the option to source from multiple suppliers. The suppliers’ manufacturing costs are private information. A widely used mechanism to find the least costly supplier under asymmetric information is to use a sealed-bid reverse auction. We compare the combinations of different simple auction formats (first- and second-price) and risk sharing supply contracts (push and pull) under full contract compliance, both for risk-neutral and risk-averse retailer and suppliers. We show the superiority of a first-price push auction for a risk-neutral retailer. However, only the pull contracts lead to supply chain coordination. If the retailer is sufficiently risk-averse, the pull is preferred over the push contract. If suppliers are risk-averse, the first-price push auction remains the choice for the retailer. Numerical examples illustrate the allocation of benefits between the retailer and the (winning) supplier for different number of bidders, demand uncertainty, cost uncertainty, and degree of risk-aversion.     

基于流程创新的供应链激励合同研究

针对由一个零售商两个制造商组成的竞争供应链,建立了零售商处于领导地位的Stackelberg博弈模型。分析了收益分享合同和成本分担合同下流程创新效率和竞争强度对流程创新水平和供应链成员利润的影响,并探讨了最优激励合同类型。研究发现,流程创新效率的降低会使得制造商流程创新水平和供应链成员利润降低;竞争强度的增大会使得制造商流程创新水平和供应链成员利润增加。此外,在流程创新效率较高和竞争强度较低时零售商提供收益分享合同有利,在流程创新效率较低和竞争强度较高时零售商提供成本分担合同有利。     

Optimal shared-savings contracts in supply chains: Linear contracts and double moral hazard

In many supply chains consumption of indirect materials, sold by a supplier to a customer for use in her production process, can be reduced by efforts exerted by either party. Since traditional supply contracts provide no incentive for the supplier to exert such effort, shared-savings contracts have been proposed as a way to improve incentives in the channel, leading to more efficient effort choices by the two parties. Such shared-savings contracts typically combine a fixed service fee with a variable component based on consumption volume. We formalize this situation using the double moral hazard framework, in which both parties decide how much effort to exert by trading off the cost of their effort against the benefits that they will obtain from reduced consumption. We also extend the double moral hazard framework to analyze a broader class of cost-of-effort functions than considered so far, including the linear cost-of-effort functions commonly found in practice. We show that the supplier can still always induce the optimal second-best equilibrium with a linear shared-savings contract. Under this broader class of functions, however, the behavior of the optimal contract as a function of the problem parameters becomes more complex. We illustrate how small changes in the problem parameters can turn profits from being a well-behaved to a poorly-behaved function of the contract, and provide some theoretical characterization of this phenomenon. The practical significance of this is that simple (linear) contracts are sufficient in many double moral hazard contexts, even for the broader class of functions we consider, but care must be taken in selecting the optimal contract parameters.     

供应商成本信息不对称下装配系统协同问题研究

本文研究的装配系统由两个供应商和一个制造商组成,其中一个供应商的成本信息为公共信息,另一个供应商的成本信息为其私有信息,制造商通过设计契约来揭示该私有信息。作为装配系统的主导者,制造商一方面以自身利润最大化为目标,另一方面希望通过系统协同来获得更多的利润。研究结果表明,制造商对两个供应商都采用批发价契约时,无法揭示供应商的私有信息;制造商对信息公开的供应商采用批发价契约,对拥有私有信息的供应商采用价格补贴契约时,可以揭示供应商的私有信息,但不能实现装配系统的整体协同;制造商对两个供应商都采用价格补贴契约时,在成功揭示供应商的私有信息的同时,也实现了装配系统的整体协同。数值分析结果表明,同制造商对两个供应商分别提供批发价契约和价格补贴契约时相比,制造商对两个供应商都提供价格补贴契约时,私有信息的揭示区间会变大,系统总利润和拥有私有信息的供应商的利润会增加,信息公开的供应商的利润会降低,制造商的利润可能增加也可能降低。     

看涨期权契约与看跌期权契约对比分析研究

在面临相同随机市场需求的情况下,本文对期权契约中的看涨期权与看跌期权契约进行了对比分析,以期为决策者在实际采购活动中选择不同类型的期权契约时提供决策依据。通过模型建立与求解分析,本文得出了销售商接受期权契约时,契约参数需要满足的条件及相应的订购策略;并进一步得出了两种期权契约下,供应链达到协调状态时的具体条件,分析了此时契约参数对供销双方利润的影响,继而给出了两种期权契约的适用范围以及供销双方的契约选择偏好。在此基础上,本文还给出了不同期权契约下,供销双方各自利润均不低于其自身保留利润时契约参数的取值范围,并证明了两种期权契约均可有效提高销售商的利润水平。最后,本文通过算例对上述结论进行了验证。     

具有私人信息的道德风险的委托—代理人模型的合约分析

本文对存在的不对称信息的环境下的具有私人信息道德风险的委托—代理人模型的合约问题进行了详细的讨论,并得出一些有新意的结论.此讨论问题的方法很值得推荐和推广,特别是在最优激励合同中,比如投资激励,管理机制中的激励,销售激励,保险激励等合同的设计,都可以借鉴此方法来研究和分析.     

防范经理事后隐藏信息的模型研究

首先,指出了经理隐匿信息的道德风险行为对所有者的危害性.其次,构造了一个防范经理在签约后隐匿信息的报酬契约.再次,在委托代理框架下给出了契约的最优解.最后,分析了最优契约的特征与性质.文章得到的一些结论对经理选任聘任机制和报酬激励机制的设计有一定的参考价值.     

Horizontal coordinating contracts in the semiconductor industry

Integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) and foundries are two types of manufacturers in the semiconductor industry. IDMs integrate both design and manufacturing functions whereas foundries solely focus on manufacturing. Since foundries often have cost advantage over IDMs due to their specialization and economies of scale, IDMs have incentives to source from foundries for the purpose of avoiding excessive capacity investment risk. As the IDM is also a potential capacity source, the IDM and foundry are in a horizontal setting rather than a purely vertical setting. In the absence of sophisticated contracts, the benchmark contract for the IDM and foundry is a wholesale price contract. We define “coordinating” contracts as those that improve both the IDM’s and foundry’s expected profits over the benchmark wholesale price contract and also lead to the maximum system profit. This paper examines if there exist coordinating capacity reservation contracts. It is found that wholesale price contracts in the horizontal setting cannot achieve the maximum system profit due to either double marginalization effect, or “misalignment of capacity-usage-priority”. In contrast, if the IDM’s capacity investment risk is not too low, there always exist coordinating capacity reservation contracts. Furthermore, under coordinating contracts, the IDM’s sourcing structure, either sole sourcing from the foundry or dual sourcing, is contingent on the firms’ cost structures.     

Coordination in a two-stage capacitated supply chain with multiple suppliers

The aim of this paper is to coordinate the inventory policies in a decentralized supply chain with stochastic demand by means of contracts. The system considered is a decentralized two-stage supply chain consisting of multiple independent suppliers and a manufacturer with limited production capacities. The suppliers operate on a make-to-stock basis and apply base stock policy to manage their inventories. On the other hand, the manufacturer employs a make-to-order strategy. Under the necessary assumptions, each supplier is modeled as an M/M/1 make-to-stock queue; and the manufacturer is modeled as a GI/M/1 queue after deriving an approximate distribution for the interarrival times of the manufacturer. Once the supply chain is modeled as a queuing system, centralized and decentralized models are developed. Comparison of the optimal solutions to these models reveals that the supply chain needs coordination. Three different transfer payment contracts are examined in this paper. These are the backorder and holding cost subsidy contracts, the transfer payment contract based on Pareto improvement, and the cost sharing contract. Each contract is evaluated according to its coordination ability and whether it is Pareto improving or not. The results indicate that all three contracts can coordinate the supply chain. However, when the Pareto improvement is taken into account, the cost sharing contract seems to be the one that will be preferred by all parties.     

The implication of time-based payment contract in the decentralized assembly system

This paper investigates the impact of two time-based payment contracts in an assembly system that consists of one assembler and two suppliers, in which both suppliers’ production times are stochastic. The assembler initially chooses the contract type (delay payment contract vs on-time payment contract) and the buffer time, and two suppliers have to simultaneously determine their production lead times. We find that in equilibrium, both suppliers cut down their production lead times under the delay payment contract, and this makes them worse off than that under the on-time payment contract. Differently, the delay payment contract is the assembler’s dominant option. This is because by setting the buffer time, the assembler can significantly mitigate the possible delay risk caused by the suppliers’ decentralization under the delay payment contract. It also shows that the entire supply chain achieves the same service level under either the centralized condition or the decentralized condition, regardless of the applied payment contract type. Note that these results are robustness when we extend the model into the system containing N (N\(>\) 2) independent suppliers.     

Equilibrium contract selection strategy in chain-to-chain competition with demand uncertainty

This paper investigates the equilibrium contract selection problem for the dominant suppliers in two competing supply chains with stochastic and price-sensitive demand. The two suppliers, acting as the Stackelberg leaders, produce substitutable products and distribute them through each exclusive retailer, and can provide either a consignment contract or a wholesale-price contract. The equilibrium behaviours of the suppliers and retailers are investigated in three different scenarios: (1) the consignment contract scenario; (2) the wholesale-price contract scenario; and (3) the hybrid contract scenario. We prove that the equilibrium contracting strategy is of the threshold type: when the cost-share rates of the two retailers are above certain thresholds, both suppliers select consignment contracts; when the cost-share rates of the two retailers are lower than certain thresholds, both suppliers select wholesale-price contracts; when one retailer’s cost-share rate is above a certain threshold and the other is lower than a certain threshold, the supplier with large retailer’s cost-share rate selects the consignment contract and the other supplier with small retailer’s cost-share rate selects the wholesale-price contract. Furthermore, these thresholds depend on price sensitivities.     

Demand uncertainty and supplier's returns policies for a multi-store style-good retailer

As demand uncertainty grows in the marketplace, a critical issue today in most purchase contract negotiations between an independent retailer of a style-good and its supplier is the provision of a returns policy, i.e., a commitment by the supplier to buy back unsold inventory of the good at the end of its selling season. Management science research on the strategic role and optimal design of returns policies has grown in recent years but so far offers little treatment of how exactly the retailer's optimal order quantity decisions are affected by demand uncertainty and how a supplier's returns policy can influence these decisions. Employing the traditional “newsboy problem” modeling framework, the authors investigate these issues considering a supplier who faces a retailer with two or more store outlets with normally distributed and possibly correlated demands. To facilitate their analyses, the authors employ a methodology based on special error function representations of the highly nonlinear objective functions of the retailer and supplier. Utilizing this approach, the authors are able to provide explicit insights into how: (a) the buyer's total order quantity decision is affected by the variability in demand; (b) buyback prices in combination with wholesale prices can influence the buyer's order quantity response to demand uncertainty; (c) demand uncertainty moderates the effects of the buyback and wholesale prices; (d) supplier's optimal combination of actions are affected by demand variability; (e) retailer's and supplier's expected profits behave in response to changes in the supplier's actions under different levels of demand variability.     

Coordination of cooperative cost-reduction efforts in a supply chain partnership

We study cooperative cost reduction in a decentralized supply chain with a single manufacturer and multiple suppliers. The manufacturer assembles components that are procured from the suppliers to produce a final product. Both the manufacturer and the suppliers invest in reducing the unit production costs of the components. We see that neither of the two well-known conventional contracts, the wholesale price contract and the cost-plus pricing contract, generally coordinates the supply chain, i.e., under both of these types of contract, the individual optimal cost-reduction efforts of players deviate from the centralized system-optimal solution. However, this result is not surprising because these contracts encourage either only the manufacturer or only the suppliers alone to invest in cost reduction.     

Step by step. The benefits of stage-based R&D licensing contracts

We examine how a licensor can optimally design licensing contracts for multi-phase R&D projects when he does not know the licensee’s project valuation, leading to adverse selection, and cannot enforce the licensee’s effort level, resulting in moral hazard. We focus on the effect of the phased nature typical of such projects, and compare single-phase and multi-phase contracts. We determine the optimal values for the upfront payment, milestone payments and royalties, and the optimal timing for outlicensing. Including multiple milestones and accompanying payments can be an effective way of discriminating between licensees holding different valuations, without having to manipulate the royalty rate, which induces licensees to invest less, resulting in lower project values and socially suboptimal solutions. Interestingly, we also find that multiple milestone payments are beneficial even when the licensor is risk-averse, contrary to standard contract theory results, which recommend that only an upfront payment should be used. In terms of licensing timing, we show that the optimal time depends on the licensor’s risk aversion, the characteristics of the licensee and the project value.