考虑不同融资金额需求的授权再制造融资策略研究

考虑授权再制造企业融资金额无法满足资金短缺需求的情况,构建资金约束下再制造企业的决策模型,研究初始资金及融资策略对再制造企业生产决策的影响。研究表明:资金约束下初始资金成为影响再制造企业生产决策的关键,同时授权费的增加会增大资金压力,限制其利润的增长;不论融资金额是否能满足资金短缺需求,再制造企业融资策略的选择都受初始资金限制,当其融资偏好为风险厌恶型时,可选择混合融资策略;在一定条件下再制造企业选择股权融资可提升再制造产品的社会效益。     

授权再制造视角下再制造设计对制造再制造影响研究

为分析授权再制造下, 再制造设计对制造/再制造影响, 构建了再制造设计不同承担模式下原始制造商与再制造商博弈模型, 对比分析再制造设计费用不同承担模式下, 再制造设计对最优纳什均衡解影响。研究主要得到:授权再制造不仅可以改变原始制造商市场竞争不利地位, 还可以增加其收益; 在授权再制造下, 只有再制造设计带给两种单位产品收益之比较大时, 两者才愿意承担再制造设计费用; 虽然再制造设计可以减少两种产品单位零售价格, 但是再制造设计不一定总是增加消费者剩余。     

Competition for cores in remanufacturing

We study competition between an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and an independently operating remanufacturer (IO). Different from the existing literature, the OEM and IO compete not only for selling their products but also for collecting returned products (cores) through their acquisition prices. We consider a two-period model with manufacturing by the OEM in the first period, and manufacturing as well as remanufacturing in the second period. We find the optimal policies for both players by establishing a Nash equilibrium in the second period, and then determine the optimal manufacturing decision for the OEM in the first period. This leads to a number of managerial insights. One interesting result is that the acquisition price of the OEM only depends on its own cost structure, and not on the acquisition price of the IO. Further insights are obtained from a numerical investigation. We find that when the cost benefits of remanufacturing diminishes and the IO has more chance to collect the available cores, the OEM manufactures less in the first period as the market in the second period gets larger to protect its market share. Finally, we consider the case where consumers have lower willingness to pay for the remanufactured products and find that in that case remanufacturing becomes less profitable overall.     

Managing new and differentiated remanufactured products

We study a firm that makes new products in the first period and uses returned cores to make remanufactured products (along with new products) in future periods. The remanufactured product is differentiated from the new product, so the firm needs to choose differentiated prices. We analyze the monopoly environment in two-period, multi-period (three, four and five) and infinite planning horizons, and characterize the optimal remanufacturing and pricing strategy for the firm. In the process, we identify remanufacturing savings thresholds that determine the production and pricing strategy for the firm. Among other results, we find—counter to intuition—that in a finite-horizon, multi-period setting, the optimal policy is not necessarily monotone in remanufacturing savings.     

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。     

两阶段再制造企业的产品定价研究

二手产品的回收再处理是众多制造商和再制造商不得不面对的问题.企业根据实际情况,考虑到顾客对再制造产品的认知差异,一般都是先翻新产品然后再升级再制造产品,因此,顾客对再制造产品的接受程度影响着再制造企业的定价决策,针对该问题构建了一个两阶段模型,其中第一阶段再制造企业将回收的产品进行简单翻新并投放市场;第二阶段,则会将产品拆卸加工再升级.以两阶段的价格作为决策变量分析再制造企业的最优生产策略.通过仿真得出结论,为再制造企业的生产决策提供一些依据.     

回收量不确定下考虑技术授权的闭环供应链产品定价研究

越来越多的企业开始采取再制造的运作模式以缓解资源浪费和环境危机。原始设备制造商(OEM)为专注于新产品制造,可通过技术授权的方式委托第三方再制造商(TPR)进行再制造活动。本文研究了回收量不确定且OEM技术授权TPR进行再制造情形下闭环供应链的产品定价问题。研究发现:(1)当废旧品回收量在较小范围波动时,OEM和TPR若想获得不低于确定情形下的利润需考虑企业风险规避程度的影响;(2)当废旧品回收量在较大范围波动时,OEM和零售商在分别制定产品批发价和零售价时需按废旧品回收量波动方向相反的方向进行;(3)在废旧品回收量波动情形下,OEM应优先选择与风险中性的TPR合作,再适当降低技术授权费用使得TPR有利可图,这样既有利于促进废旧品的回收,也益于双方合作关系的持续发展。     

The value of dynamic pricing for cores in remanufacturing with backorders

In remanufacturing, the supply of used products and the demand for remanufactured products are usually mismatched because of the great uncertainties on both sides. In this paper, we propose a dynamic pricing (DP) policy to balance this uncertain supply and demand. Specifically, we study a remanufacturer’s problem of pricing a single class of cores with random price-dependent returns and random demand for the remanufactured products with backlogs. We model this pricing task as a continuous-time Markov decision process, which addresses both the finite and infinite horizon problems, and provide managerial insights by analysing the structural properties of the optimal policy. We then use several computational examples to illustrate the impacts of particular system parameters on pricing policy and the benefit of DP. In addition, the models are extended to account for the price adjustment costs. We show through numerical example that the nice structural properties do not exist any longer, and find when DP is better than static pricing.     

Transnational remanufacturing decisions under carbon taxes and tariffs

Considering the influence of carbon taxes and tariffs on transnational closed-loop supply chains, this paper establishes three remanufacturing modes of an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) in an exporting country. In one remanufacturing mode, the OEM conducts remanufacturing itself, and in the other two modes, the OEM authorizes a retailer in the importing country to engage in remanufacturing. Next, we analyse the optimal pricing and carbon emissions reduction decisions of the OEM and retailer in the different modes and further study how different levels of carbon tax and tariff combinations impact OEM remanufacturing decisions, the social welfare of importing countries and the environment. The results show the following. (1) When the carbon tariff is high, the optimal sales of remanufactured products increase. However, this does not contribute to the continuation of the product system; thus, it is short sighted for the government to hastily set high carbon tariffs to discourage the import of new products to protect domestic enterprises. (2) Carbon tariffs cannot effectively encourage the OEM to invest in emission reduction because carbon tariffs are passed on to consumers in importing countries through price adjustment. However, carbon tax may be an indirect factor affecting the OEM's willingness to invest in emission reduction. (3) The OEM favours allowing the retailer to remanufacture when the carbon emissions of the remanufactured products are similar to those of new products. Co-investment in emission reduction has the potential to align the profit maximization of the OEM with the social welfare maximization of the importing country. (4) It is not profitable for the importing government to set high carbon tariffs to protect its own enterprises.     

授权制造下碳交易对制造/再制造影响及协调机制研究

在授权制造下,为分析碳交易对制造/再制造供应链影响和研究供应链协调机制,基于授权制造分别构建由一个原始制造商和一个再制造商参与的分散决策博弈模型和集中决策博弈模型,对比分析政府碳交易政策对两种决策模式最优解影响,并针对制造商分散决策导致的边际损失问题,给出固定授权费的协调机制。研究主要得到:无论分散决策还是集中决策,当碳交易价格大于某一阈值时,碳交易不仅可以降低两种产品对环境的影响,还增加消费者剩余;分散决策时,在碳交易下原始制造商可以通过降低单位授权再制造费用来增加利润;原始制造商和再制造商可以签订固定授权费的契约来协调供应链利润。     

再制造市场OEM与UOEM的博弈与学习研究

在再制造利益的驱动下,一些非原始设备制造商(UOEM)欲进入再制造市场。为探究UOEM参与再制造的进入博弈,应用演化博弈理论构建了原始设备制造商(OEM)和UOEM策略选择的复制动态。研究表明:博弈双方的回收价格、UOEM排除障碍的成本会影响UOEM的策略选择;OEM选择默许而潜在的UOEM进入再制造品市场是二维动态系统唯一的演化稳定策略。进一步考虑了参与人的学习行为,将噪声项引入复制动态方程中,得到了一个非子博弈完美均衡,即当带着噪声项的OEM采取竞争策略时,进入者的最优策略是置身于市场之外。     

二手市场对耐用品垄断厂商再制造决策的影响分析

考虑耐用品可多周期使用的特点,从消费者效用角度建立了无限周期中存在二手市场时耐用品垄断厂商再制造决策模型。运用稳态均衡分析方法得到,二手市场会降低耐用品垄断厂商选择再制造策略的成本临界值;提高再制造耐用品的最优定价、降低新耐用品的最优定价;新耐用品价值越高、再制造成本越低,二手市场对耐用品垄断厂商的最优决策影响越大。最后,通过数值分析验证了理论分析的结论。     

Supply planning models for a remanufacturer under just-in-time manufacturing environment with reverse logistics

We study a supply planning problem in a manufacturing system with two stages. The first stage is a remanufacturer that supplies two closely-related components to the second (manufacturing) stage, which uses each component as the basis for its respective product. The used products are recovered from the market by a third-party logistic provider through an established reverse logistics network. The remanufacturer may satisfy the manufacturer’s demand either by purchasing new components or by remanufacturing components recovered from the returned used products. The remanufacturer’s costs arise from product recovery, remanufacturing components, purchasing original components, holding inventories of recovered products and remanufactured components, production setups (at the first stage and at each component changeover), disposal of recovered products that are not remanufactured, and coordinating the supply modes. The objective is to develop optimal production plans for different production strategies. These strategies are differentiated by whether inventories of recovered products or remanufactured components are carried, and by whether the order in which retailers are served during the planning horizon may be resequenced. We devise production policies that minimize the total cost at the remanufacturer by specifying the quantity of components to be remanufactured, the quantity of new components to be purchased from suppliers, and the quantity of recovered used products that must be disposed. The effects of production capacity are also explored. A comprehensive computational study provides insights into this closed-loop supply chain for those strategies that are shown to be NP-hard.     

Multi-period minimax hedging strategies

Option pricing and hedging under transaction costs are of major importance to marketmakers and investors. In this paper we present the basic minimax strategy which determines the optimum number of shares that minimizes the worst-case potential hedging error under transaction costs for the next period. We present two extensions of this strategy. The first extension is the two-period minimax where the worst case is defined over a two-period setting. The objective function of the basic minimax strategy is augmented to include the hedging error for the second period. The second extension is the variable minimax strategy where early rebalancing is triggered by the minimax hedging error. Simulation results suggest that the basic minimax strategy and its two extensions are superior in performance to delta hedging and that the variable minimax strategy is superior to both the basic and the two-period strategies. This result is due to the opportunity provided by the variable minimax strategy to rebalance early. The greatest amount of business for traded options is done for at-the-money options; in this paper, we have concluded that the minimax strategies are particularly suitable for managing the risk of such options. In the Appendix, we present the minimax algorithm used for the implementation of these strategies.     

Dynamic pricing with uncertain production cost: An alternating-move approach

This article studies a two-firm dynamic pricing model with random production costs. The firms produce the same perishable products over an infinite time horizon when production (or operation) costs are random. In each period, each firm determines its price and production levels based on its current production cost and its opponent’s previous price level. We use an alternating-move game to model this problem and show that there exists a unique subgame perfect Nash equilibrium in production and pricing decisions. We provide a closed-form solution for the firm’s pricing policy. Finally, we study the game in the case of incomplete information, when both or one of the firms do not have access to the current prices charged by their opponents.     

Production planning for hybrid remanufacturing and manufacturing system with component recovery

In this paper, we address component recovery under the condition of limited resources from the OEM's (Original Equipment Manufacturer's) standpoint. We develop a linear programming model for a hybrid remanufacturing and manufacturing system for production planning problems with deterministic returns. In this paper, a data set from an OEM that both remanufactures and manufactures the products is used to demonstrate the performance of the proposed model. Subsequently, an analysis of the impact of the remanufactured product’s price and the quantity of returns on revenue and total cost will be discussed. We have found that uncertain factors of manufacturing influence the profit and uncertain factors of remanufacturing influence the production planning, such as the rate of the yield on component remanufacturing and the quantity of returns.     

Pricing used products for remanufacturing

Remanufacturing is one of recovery options for used products. As remanufacturing requires a continuous supply of used products, the economic incentive is required to attract customers to return their used products (called cores) and the problem of pricing a core becomes an important issue. Such a pricing problem is analogous to pricing an option, which can be used to sell the remanufactured cores (called core products). As sales price of core products follows a geometric Brownian motion, we propose a model here to evaluate the acquisition price of cores. This model links core acquisition price with the sale price of core product but assumes other costs such as logistics and remanufacturing to be deterministic. We have presented a numerical example to show its applicability. Since the model proposed here is generic, it is believed that the proposed model can be used in setting the core prices in many situations.     

Optimal core acquisition and remanufacturing policies under uncertain core quality fractions

Cores acquired by a remanufacturer are typically highly variable in quality. Even if the expected fractions of the various quality levels are known, then the exact fractions when acquiring cores are still uncertain. Our model incorporates this uncertainty in determining optimal acquisition decisions by considering multiple quality classes and a multinomial quality distribution for an acquired lot. We derive optimal acquisition and remanufacturing policies for both deterministic and uncertain demand. For deterministic demand, we derive a simple closed-form expression for the total expected cost. In a numerical experiment, we highlight the effect of uncertainty in quality fractions on the optimal number of acquired cores and show that the cost error of ignoring uncertainty can be significant. For uncertain demand, we derive optimal newsboy-type solutions for the optimal remanufacture-up-to levels and an approximate expression for the total expected cost given the number of acquired cores. In a further numerical experiment, we explore the effects of demand uncertainty on the optimal acquisition and remanufacturing decisions, and on the total expected cost.     

A capacitated firm’s pricing strategies for strategic consumers with different search costs

This paper studies pricing strategies of a seller with budget constraints facing two types of strategic consumers with different search costs, and proposes three pricing strategies to motivate all consumers to visit his shop. These are the basic price strategy, differentiated compensation strategy and an improved differentiated compensation strategy. Based on the rational expectations paradigm, we characterize the rational expectations equilibrium in the game and propose a basic pricing strategy. In order to address the interplay between price and demand, we further propose a differentiated compensation strategy to improve the basic model. We then compare the differentiated compensation strategy to the basic pricing strategy when both are feasible. We find that selection of the optimal strategy is independent of composition of consumers but is dependent on the seller’s budget level and the difference between the two search costs. If the budget is large enough and the difference between the search costs is small enough, a differentiated compensation strategy can further improve the seller’s profitability. In addition to these findings, we first propose an improved differentiated compensation strategy to further enhance the firm’s profit. We find that the optimal strategy is to implement the improved differentiated compensation strategy when all three strategies are feasible. Interestingly, the firm may benefit from paying a high compensation to the consumers.     

A continuous-time dynamic pricing model knowing the competitor’s pricing strategy

In this paper we consider a dynamic pricing model for a firm knowing that a competitor adopts a static pricing strategy. We establish a continuous time model to analyze the effect of dynamic pricing on the improvement in expected revenue in the duopoly. We assume that customers arrive to purchase tickets in accordance with a geometric Brownian motion. We derive an explicit closed-form expression for an optimal pricing policy to maximize the expected revenue. It is shown that when the competitor adopts a static pricing policy, dynamic pricing is not always effective in terms of maximizing expected revenue compared to a fixed pricing strategy. Moreover, we show that the size of the reduction in the expected revenue depends on the competitor’s pricing strategy. Numerical results are presented to illustrate the dynamic pricing policy.