A supply chain model with direct and retail channels

We study a dual channel supply chain in which a manufacturer sells to a retailer as well as to consumers directly. Consumers choose the purchase channel based on price and service qualities. The manufacturer decides the price of the direct channel and the retailer decides both price and order quantity. We develop conditions under which the manufacturer and the retailer share the market in equilibrium. We show that the difference in marginal costs of the two channels plays an important role in determining the existence of dual channels in equilibrium. We also show that demand variability has a major influence on the equilibrium prices and on the manufacturer’s motivation for opening a direct channel. In the case that the manufacturer and the retailer coordinate and follow a centralized decision maker, we show that adding a direct channel will increase the overall profit. Our numerical results show that an increase in retailer’s service quality may increase the manufacturer’s profit in dual channel and a larger range of consumer service sensitivity may benefit both parties in the dual channel. Our results suggest that the manufacturer is likely to be better off in the dual channel than in the single channel when the retailer’s marginal cost is high and the wholesale price, consumer valuation and the demand variability are low.     

An integrated producer–buyer supply chain with delivery cost under stochastic transportation time

An integrated producer–buyer supply chain is used to simultaneously determine the optimum levels of the safety stock, delivery quantity, and number of shipments in this paper. The scenario is created by scheduling a single-setup at the producer with multiple deliveries to the buyer, and all shipments to the buyer are equal-sized batches. This study attempts to study the effects of delivery cost and transportation time, assumes that there is a stochastic transportation time between both producer and buyer, and that shortages are allowed. The transportation time is assumed to be Weibull distributed. The objective functions of the integrated model include the setup cost, inventory carrying cost, and delivery cost. We analyze the scenario where the delivery cost is explicitly considered in the model rather than considered as part of the fixed ordering cost or insignificant. A numerical example is also presented to demonstrate the proposed model using actual shipping rate data. In particular, the results show that when the producer's and buyer's carrying costs are low, and/or the mean time of transportation and delivery costs are high, then this can benefit both parties with regard to sharing total profit.     

Demand disruption and coordination of the supply chain with a dominant retailer

This paper develops two coordination models of a supply chain consisting of one manufacturer, one dominant retailer and multiple fringe retailers to investigate how to coordinate the supply chain after demand disruption. We consider two coordination schedules, linear quantity discount schedule and Groves wholesale price schedule. We find that, under the linear quantity discount schedule, the manufacturer only needs to adjust the maximum variable wholesale price after demand disruption. For each case of the disrupted amount of demand, the higher the market share of the dominant retailer, the lower its average wholesale price and the subsidy will be under the linear quantity discount schedule, while the higher its fraction of the supply chain’s profit will be under Groves wholesale price schedule. When the increased amount of demand is very large and production cost is sufficiently low, linear quantity discount schedule is better for the manufacturer. However, when the production cost is sufficiently large, Groves wholesale price schedule is always better. We also find that the disrupted amount of demand largely affects the allocation of the supply chain’s profit.     

Supply chain coordination for newsvendor-type products with two ordering opportunities and demand information update

This paper studies a coordination issue with two ordering opportunities in a two-echelon supply chain, where one manufacturer sells a single newsvendor-type product through one buyer. The manufacturer does not hold inventory and activates production or order with an infinite capacity and a fixed setup cost in response to the buyer’s order. The buyer places two orderings during the selling period of the product: one happens at the beginning of the period and the other at some specified time within the selling period. The whole selling period is divided into two stages or sub-periods by the buyer’s second order. The stochastic demands in the two sub-periods are assumed to be auto-correlated. The excess demand before the second order is partially backordered, whereas the excess demand at the end of the selling season is utterly lost. Under both the centralized and decentralized settings, we develop the models of how the buyer determines his two-ordering policies. We analyse the existence and uniqueness of the optimal solutions to the models and present the corresponding analytical solutions. Furthermore, we propose an improved revenue-sharing contract that can realize the perfect coordination of the supply chain and study how the revenue-sharing policies affect the supply chain members’ decisions. Finally, we show the superiority of the presented two-ordering strategy through numerical examples.     

Integrated inventory models considering the two-level trade credit policy and a price-negotiation scheme

This paper develops the integrated inventory models with permissible delay in payment, in which customers’ demand is sensitive to the buyer’s price. The models consider the two-level trade credit policy in the vendor–buyer and buyer–customer relationships in supply chain management. A simple recursive solution procedure is proposed for the integrated models to determine the buyer’s optimal pricing and production/order strategy. Although the total profit from the buyer and vendor increases together, the buyer’s share lessens. To compensate the buyer’s loss due to the cooperative relationship, a negotiation system is presented in order to allocate the profit increase to the vendor and buyer to determine the pricing and production/order strategy. A numerical example and sensitivity analysis are provided to illustrate the proposed model. The results indicate that the total profit from the buyer and vendor together can increase, although a price discount is given to the buyer in the proposed models.     

Supply chain coordination for the joint determination of order quantity and reorder point using credit option

Decisions regarding order quantity and reorder point are two major challenges in supply chain inventory management. In this paper, a coordination model of the joint determination of these two decision variables is proposed. A decentralized supply chain consisting of one buyer and one supplier in a multi-period setting is investigated. Demand and lead times are uncertain in our model. An incentive scheme based on credit option has been developed to encourage the buyer to participate in the coordination model. In this model, the downstream member has the option of using credit to purchase goods during the credit time, subject to its commitment to a jointly agreed order quantity and reorder point. The credit time is determined in such a way that the two parties have incentives to participate. The proposed incentive scheme can share the benefits of coordination between the two members based on their bargaining power. The proposed model shows that the coordination of the reorder point, together with order quantity, can increase the overall chain profitability as well as each member’s profitability.     

强制减排规制下基于碳减排利润增量分享契约的供应链协调研究

碳减排会增加制造商的成本,导致批发价和零售价提高,从而抑制市场需求。以此为背景,本文针对由一个制造商和一个零售商组成的供应链,研究了强制减排规制下考虑消费者低碳偏好时的供应链决策与协调。通过设计碳减排利润增量分享契约协调制造商和零售商的决策,实现帕累托改进,利用Rubinstein讨价还价模型最终确定减排利润分享比例。研究发现,实施碳减排利润分享契约能有效提高零售商的订货量,并降低批发价格;制造商的利润随着消费者低碳意识提高而提高;当净化率较低时,零售商的利润随消费者低碳意识提高而提高;当净化率较高时,零售商的利润随消费者低碳意识提高而降低;最后,论文通过数值模拟验证了碳减排利润分享契约的有效性。     

Supply chain performance and consumer surplus under alternative structures of channel dominance

Supply chain partnerships exhibit varying degrees of power distribution among the agents. This has implications for pricing and operational decisions in the channel and eventually influences the end customers. To understand how different power schemes affect the supply chain partners’ performance and consumer surplus, we study channel structures with a dominant manufacturer, a dominant retailer, and no single-agent dominance. Under random and price sensitive demand, channel dominance is interpreted in our setting as exerting power to determine the retail and wholesale prices as well as to transfer the inventory risk to the weaker party. We analyze all problems in a game-theory based framework and characterize the equilibrium retail price, wholesale price, and order/production quantity. We show that the manufacturer-dominated channel structure leads to the highest production quantity, the lowest retail price, and the largest expected surplus for an individual buyer; on the other hand, the entire channel profit and the total consumer surplus are highest when the retailer holds the channel dominance. While both the manufacturer and the retailer are better off when they become a power agent individually, channel dominance does not always guarantee higher share of channel profits, as we show under the manufacturer-dominated structure. Further insights are derived analytically and numerically from comparisons of the manufacturer/retailer dominance schemes with the no single-agent dominance structure and integrated channel. We also study extensions to investigate the effect of demand model and risk sharing, and we address industry settings with alternative schemes of holding cost, shortage penalty and salvage value.     

Cooperative advertising in a distribution channel with fairness concerns

Cooperative (co-op) advertising has been widely used in practice and employed as a strategy to improve the performance of a distribution channel. It is known from the existing models that co-op advertising could not achieve the channel coordination (i.e., maximize the total channel profit). In this paper, we consider a distribution channel consisting of a single manufacturer and a single retailer, and investigate the effect of the retailer’s fairness concerns. Applying the equilibrium analysis, we obtain the following results: (1) Channel coordination can be achieved if the retailer has fairness concerns and model parameters satisfy certain conditions. (2) Although both channel members become better off with co-op advertising if neither channel member has fairness concerns, we find situations where co-op advertising brings detrimental effects to the retailer if the retailer has fairness concerns. (3) The retailer’s fairness concerns may increase or decrease the equilibrium participation rate, the equilibrium advertising effort, and the equilibrium profit of the manufacturer and the whole channel. (4) We identify the conditions under which the effectiveness of co-op advertising can be improved or reduced by the retailer’s fairness concerns. As long as co-op advertising can bring extra profit to the manufacturer, the retailer’s fairness concerns could improve the effectiveness of the co-op advertising. (5) There exists a Pareto improvement for the profits of both the manufacturer and the retailer when a retailer without fairness concerns becomes fair-minded.     

考虑专利许可的制造商与再制造商竞争策略

研究了在专利完善市场受专利保护的原制造商面对再制造商竞争所采取得两种策略:无许可再制造与许可再制造。在再制造成本差异及消费者异质的情况下,分别建立了无回收数量限制的单周期模型和受回收数量限制的两周期模型,利用博弈理论求解原制造商和再制造商竞争情况下的最优决策。通过比较分析和数值仿真,讨论了不同参数对新产品和再制造品定价策略及双方利润的影响,并给出了相关结论。结果表明,原制造商倾向于采用许可再制造策略,这是在于原制造商可以通过收取专利许可费来分享再制造所带来的收益;而对再制造商而言,只有许可再制造所带来的节省成本足够高时,才有意愿接受原制造商的专利技术支持。     

Supply chain coordination with controllable lead time and asymmetric information

This paper considers coordinated decisions in a decentralized supply chain consisting of a vendor and a buyer with controllable lead time. We analyze two supply chain inventory models. In the first model we assume the vendor has complete information about the buyer’s cost structure. By taking both the vendor and the buyer’s individual rationalities into consideration, a side payment coordination mechanism is designed to realize supply chain Pareto dominance. In the second model we consider a setting where the buyer possesses private cost information. We design the coordination mechanism by using principal-agent model to induce the buyer to report his true cost structure. The solution procedures are also developed to get the optimal solutions of these two models. The results of numerical examples show that shortening lead time to certain extent can reduce inventory cost and the coordination mechanisms designed for both symmetric and asymmetric information situations are effective.     

Coordination and profit sharing between a manufacturer and a buyer with target profit under credit option

Several studies have focused on buyer vendor coordination through quantity discount/credit option mechanism but few quantitative models and investigations are available that have explored the mechanism for transfer of surplus generated due to coordination. In this paper, we develop a coordination mechanism through credit option such that both the parties can divide the surplus equitably after satisfying their own profit targets. Two situations are explored here; in the first situation; both the parties have no individual profit target from the business whereas in the second situation, there are individual profit target for both the parties. The proposed mechanism for division of surplus is studied through a numerical study and the impact of different parameter values on the results are examined.     

Coordination mechanism for a deteriorating item in a two-level supply chain system

The subject of the coordination between the suppliers and the buyers in multi-echelon inventory-distribution systems has been studied by many researchers. This paper considers a supply chain including a manufacturer and several buyers and assumes that the inventory items deteriorate over time and its inventory level decreases. In order to determine the order policies, coordination over the supply chain is achieved by scheduling the buyers’ delivery days and their coordination with the manufacturer’s production cycle. A mathematical model is developed and analyzed. To test the efficiency of the proposed model, two other models with the supposition of lot-sizing policies with common order cycle and independent deciding are also developed. In comparison to the other two models, the numerical results show that the synchronizing model of production and delivery cycles works better and has less total cost. In addition, in order to encourage the buyers in cooperation, a model on profit sharing is proposed that equitably shares the total savings with all the parties.     

基于利他偏好的电商供应链最优决策与契约协调

构建了由一个占主导地位的电商平台和一个处于跟随地位的制造商组成的Stackelberg主从博弈模型,研究了电商平台有无利他偏好时电商供应链的最优决策和契约协调问题,并通过数值算例验证了本文的主要结论.研究表明:电商平台的利他偏好行为能够促使自身服务水平提高、正向影响制造商的最优销售价格并削弱自身利润.但电商平台的让利行为能够提高制造商的利润水平、缓和供应链冲突并改善供应链整体绩效."销售佣金比例+服务成本共担"契约能够完美的协调电商供应链,使双方最优利润获得帕累托改进,从而保证电商平台有足够的激励执行利他偏好行为.另外,进一步分析发现电商平台的利他偏好正向影响制造商支付给电商平台的固定技术服务费、制造商占有的电商供应链利润份额和服务成本分担比例,负向影响自身的销售佣金比例.     

Competitive strategies and market segmentation for suppliers with substitutable products

This research studies the competition between two coexisting suppliers in a two-echelon supply chain. The suppliers have different inventory cost structures (holding cost and setup cost). Each supplier offers one type of the two substitutable products to multiple buyers. Buyers’ preferences between the substitutable products differ. Each buyer has a particular order profile (order frequency and quantity). A buyer chooses between the suppliers based on the prices offered by both suppliers and his/her own preference. A Hotelling-type model is used to describe buyers’ preferences for the products. We are able to describe the conditions for buyers to switch between the suppliers, and therefore spot the buyer groups that may or may not switch when the suppliers compete. Pricing strategies for different buyer groups are suggested to the competitive suppliers accordingly. Furthermore, equilibrium prices, market segments, and overall profits for the suppliers are revealed based on Game Theory. An algorithm is also proposed to forecast buyers’ reactions to suppliers’ pricing strategies given the buyers’ order profiles and preferences between the substitutable products.     

Analysis of a dual-sourcing service provision game with symmetric and asymmetric vendors

This paper models a service provision game between two vendors under symmetric and asymmetric cost structures, who compete in first-period service quality levels with each other, with the aim of winning the larger share of the buyer’s fixed reward in the second period. This game differs from the previous studies in that the buyer maintains dual sourcing over two periods and thus has different characteristics. We show that this service provision game has distinct mixed-strategy equilibria with the vendors under symmetric and asymmetric cost structures. We find that the larger the winner’s share in the second period, the higher the vendors’ first-period service quality levels. However, increasing the winner’s share in the second period does not necessarily benefit the vendor with the lower marginal cost, but surely hurts the equilibrium profit of the vendor with the higher marginal cost.     

A fuzzy mathematical model for the joint economic lot size problem with multiple price breaks

This paper applies fuzzy mathematical programming to solve the joint economic lot size problem with multiple price breaks. In order to entice the buyer to increase the order quantity, it is a common practice for the seller to offer quantity discounts to the buyer. From the system viewpoint, the joint cost for the seller and buyer can be minimized only when the buyer increases his economic order quantity. The problem is how to determine the number of price breaks, as well as the quantity discount and order quantity at each price break, to achieve the optimal joint cost. Fuzzy mathematical programming provides a very efficient algorithm to solve the above problem simultaneously from the perspectives of the seller and the buyer. Another common problem in joint economic lot size model is how to split the system profit between the seller and the buyer. Whereas the traditional approach to this problem is to divide the profit based on a certain ratio determined by the bargaining power of both parties, fuzzy mathematical programming can achieve the same satisfaction level to both parties based on their respective cost functions.     

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。     

Channel incentives in sharing new product demand information and robust contracts

Demand for a new product is often highly uncertain. As the developer of a new product, the manufacturer may reduce the uncertainty of the product’s demand through observing progress in his product development process or receiving demand signals directly from customers. This paper first shows that a centralized channel always benefits from improved demand information. Yet, to realize this benefit in a decentralized manufacturer–retailer channel, the manufacturer needs to disclose his private demand information to the retailer. We show that the manufacturer’s incentive to share his improved demand information depends on the supply contract signed with the retailer. Furthermore, mandating the manufacturer to disclose his improved demand information can actually reduce the total channel profit. We provide managerial insights by analyzing three widely used contract forms. We investigate whether these contracts are robust under an unanticipated demand information update observed by the manufacturer. We show that the quantity flexibility contract with a high return rate is not robust. The buyback contract, however, is robust and always achieves information sharing while preserving channel performance.     

Inventory competition and allocation in a multi-channel distribution system

Consider a supply chain involving one manufacturer and one independent retailer. The manufacturer distributes her product to the end consumer through the independent retailer as well as through her direct channel. Each of the two channels faces a stochastic demand. If one channel is out of stock, a fraction of the unsatisfied customers visit the other channel, which induces inventory competition between the channels. Under the scenario described above, will the manufacturer ever undercut the retailer’s order when the capacity is infinite? What are the equilibria of the game? How does a capacity constraint affect the equilibrium outcome? What is the optimal inventory allocation strategy for the manufacturer? Using a game theoretic model we seek answers to the above questions. Both the capacitated and the infinite capacity games are considered. We establish the necessary condition for a manufacturer to undercut a retailer’s order and show that a manufacturer may deny the retailer of inventory even when the capacity is ample. We show that there can be an equilibrium in the capacitated game where a manufacturer might not use the entire capacity and still deny a retailer inventory. We also show that a mild capacity constraint may make both parties better off and thereby increase the total supply chain profit. We develop a simple yet practical contract called the reverse revenue sharing contract and show that along with a fixed franchise fee this contract can coordinates our decentralized supply chain.