考虑质量成本的居家养老服务平台定价策略研究

人口老龄化背景下,为满足老年人日益增长的高质量养老服务需求,共享养老互联网平台开始涌现.为了探讨从服务质量角度研究质量成本投入对居家养老服务平台利润的影响,建立了以平台利润最大化为决策目标的考虑质量成本居家养老服务定价模型,构建长者和养老服务提供方效用函数,分别讨论了居家养老服务平台双方质量成本对最优定价、最优消费者剩余、最优生产者剩余以及平台最大利润的影响,并运用Matlab软件进行模拟分析,给出平台基于质量成本的最优定价策略.研究发现:居家养老服务平台增加双方质量成本投入会使得平台向长者和养老服务提供方收取较高的价格,同时带来双方体验感增加,平台网络外部性增强,有利于居家养老服务平台利润提升,最终促进共享养老产业健康发展.     

考虑企业释放质量信号行为的产品推广策略

为吸引消费者, 一些企业尝试以释放质量信号为手段进行产品推广。本文考虑消费者购买时的参考效用, 通过构建模型, 探讨了短期经营下低质量企业不释放质量信号、短期经营下低质量企业释放质量信号、长期经营下低质量企业不释放质量信号和长期经营下低质量企业释放质量信号等四种情况下的产品定价策略, 并分析了释放质量信号对企业运营带来的利弊。研究发现:长期经营下低质量企业释放质量信号时, 产品质量差距的扩大将提高竞争企业的最优定价, 而释放质量信号程度的增加则将使最优定价降低。同时, 通过释放质量信号, 短期内低质量企业看似可以借此获得大量需求, 但现实中可行性不高。从长期经营来看, 以释放质量信号为手段的推广策略实际上会损害整个市场的利益。     

带有交易费用和持有成本的局内采购管理模型竞争分析

采购管理是企业经营活动的一个重要组成部分,更加有效的采购管理策略可以大大减少采购费用,对于企业的经营业绩非常重要。在现实的经济活动中交易费用和持有成本在企业管理费用中占很大一部分比率,而采购过程影响着交易费用和持有成本。所以在前人研究的基础上,将交易费用和持有成本引入到局内采购管理模型中,使得运用该策略无论以后采购价格如何变化,局内人的采购成本总是对应局外问题最优采购成本的一定比例c之内,并得到c与原模型相同。但是引入交易费用和持有成本后每天的采购量将发生变化,原模型是在不考虑交易费用和持有成本的前提下得得到的每天采购量和最优竞争比,如果考虑到现实经济活动中不可忽略的交易费用和持有成本,仍然按照原模型来确定每天的采购量来采购就不能得到最优竞争比c。所以本文考虑到了交易费用和持有成本,并得到和原模型不同的每天采购量,并求出最优竞争比c。     

制造商质量投入竞争与合作的双渠道供应链动态博弈研究

针对具有不同质量投入和服务投入的双渠道供应链,主要研究其成员最优均衡决策问题.构建了包含两个制造商和一个零售商的两级双渠道供应链决策模型;采用微分博弈确定在制造商竞争和合作两种模型下各成员的最优均衡决策及其利润,并着重探讨质量投入系数、服务竞争系数和传统渠道市场占有率这三个关键参数对它们的影响;用算例对该模型进行仿真分析研究结果表明:在竞争模型下零售商的利润随着传统渠道市场占有率、质量投入竞争和服务竞争的增大而增大,但合作模型下的利润与服务竞争无关;制造商合作时制造商的利润之和提高,且两个制造商在两个渠道边际利润和之比在一定范围内,两个制造商会有合作意愿,但零售商的利润下降.研究能够为各成员企业的最优均衡决策提供支持和参考.     

App开发者质量投资和定价策略研究

本文考虑了由两个App开发者和一个下载平台商所构成的二级App供应链,在开发者间存在价格竞争和质量竞争的情况下,区分开发者竞争、开发者合作、供应链集中决策以及混合竞争四种不同的情景,建立了开发者质量投资和定价决策模型,分析了四种情景下开发者的均衡策略,并通过数值仿真进一步探讨了价格竞争程度和质量竞争程度对不同情境下均衡结果的影响。研究表明,高能力开发者的最优质量投资水平以及最优App价格均高于低能力开发者;价格竞争程度和质量竞争程度对非合作情形下的最优策略影响显著,对合作情形下的最优策略影响不显著;此外,App供应链总利润的高低取决于开发者与平台商之间合作的紧密程度。     

基于不同产品质量安全水平的企业生产决策优化及相应消费者效用

基于消费者对产品平均质量安全水平的预期不同,在企业可以同时选择生产高、低质量安全水平产品的条件下,分别建立了完全垄断与完全竞争市场中的企业利润最大化模型,比较分析了企业供给产品的数量、利润及相应的消费者效用,得出消费者质量安全水平敏感度、产品需求价格敏感度及产品的高、低质量安全水平对上述决策的影响.据此,结合我国国情,为中国产品质量安全水平的提升提供了参考与启示.     

供应中断下零售商的最优定价和最优分批订购策略

考虑了由两个可靠性不同的供应商,一个零售商和一个竞争零售商组成的供应链系统,研究了以双垄断市场为背景,在供应中断条件下,建立了零售商的最优定价模型,给出了最优销售价格和分批订购策略.最后通过数值算例就零售商和竞争零售商价格对竞争零售商的采购成本在不中断和中断情形下做了比较.     

广告价格折扣与在线卖方产品质量的激励——中介型电子商务交易平台的视角

研究了信息不对称下电子商务交易平台对在线卖方提高产品质量的激励问题.在线卖方提高产品质量需要付出质量成本,电子商务交易平台监督卖方产品质量需要付出监督成本.当作为理性人的卖方和交易平台提供商考虑自身利益最大化时,导致电子商务中的产品质量不高.将在线卖方在交易平台处的广告费用与其提供的产品质量相联系,证明了通过建立广告费用价格折扣与产品合格率正向相关的契约可以激励在线卖方提高产品质量,并且证明了该契约对在线卖方和电子商务交易平台是双赢的.     

考虑销售策略的产品与增值性服务联合定价与协调契约研究

运用服务展开差异化竞争、增强产品竞争力已成为制造企业的战略选择.通过构建制造商和强势零售商的利润模型,研究了产品质量影响下产品与增值性服务捆绑销售的最优策略问题,对增值性服务单独及捆绑销售下的产品及增值性服务价格,产品质量的优化决策进行了分析,并进一步研究了强势零售商主导产业链背景下的产品与增值性服务协调问题.研究发现,不同销售策略下产品和增值性服务价格之和的高低与产品生产成本具有相关关系;制造商和强势零售商可以在一定范围内同时实现利润的帕累托改进;对于增值性服务成本的控制是降低产品零售价格的重要因素;协调前后强势零售商的利润变化情况与增值性服务和产品的互补性密切相关,协调契约可以提高捆绑销售下的产品和增值性服务价格,进而增加强势零售商和制造商的收益.并通过数值仿真验证了相关结论的有效性.     

质量约束下闭环供应链差异决策研究

针对由一原始设备制造商和一独立再制商所组成的闭环供应链系统,考虑到新品质量水平对独立再制商可回收量的质量约束效应,以及新品与再制品的价格及质量竞争,分别构建了原始设备制造商领导、独立再制商领导、无领导三种不同市场结构下闭环供应链决策模型,探讨了质量约束效应对闭环供应链运营的影响。研究表明:(1)三种市场结构下,新品和再制品两者在“质量水平-价格”两维度均有所差异,且市场地位的不对等有利于产品质量水平的共同提升;(2)质量约束效应的存在会对产品的价格和质量同时产生影响;(3)再制品具有质量劣势,且质量约束效应的增强,再制品质量劣势越大;(4)市场结构的变化及质量约束效应的强弱并不会影响市场总需求量,仅仅会影响成员企业的市场份额;在大多数情况下,消费者对新品需求更为活跃。但当原始设备制造商为市场领导者时,质量约束效应低于一阈值水平时,再制品销量反而高于新品销量;(5)无论从成员个体,还是从供应链整体,原始设备制造商为领导者的市场结构最有效,且新品质量约束效应并不会影响供应链总利润,仅影响成员企业在总利润中的分成;新品质量约束效应的增强更有利于原始设备制造商利润的改善,但同时会损害独立再制商利润。     

Joint pricing and production decisions for new products with learning curve effects under upstream and downstream trade credits

Today's leading companies generate a substantial portion of their sales from new products. For example, Apple Inc. generates almost 60% of its sales revenue from products launched in the past four years. Hence, the importance of new products cannot be overestimated. Pricing strategy is particularly important during the introductory stage of a new product, when the learning curve effect is most pronounced. Although the learning curve effect reduces production cost significantly during the introduction period of a new product, most researchers have assumed that the production cost remains constant throughout a product's lifecycle. In our opinion, failing to consider this learning curve phenomenon may lead to biased solutions. Furthermore, suppliers often offer manufacturers a short-term interest-free loan (i.e., trade credit) to stimulate sales, while manufacturers adjust price to influence consumer purchasing decisions. However, most researchers have not considered the combined effects of pricing strategy on demand, learning curve effect on production cost, and trade credit influence on lot size. Therefore, we propose an inventory model to determine optimal lot-sizing and pricing strategies with both upstream and downstream trade credit, manufacturer's production cost which follows a learning curve effect, and production quantity influenced by both selling price and trade credit. Then we derive the conditions of the optimal solution. Numerical examples and sensitivity analysis are performed to examine results and provide managerial insights. These results show that the learning curve effect significantly lowers selling price, while tremendously increasing both profit and demand.     

考虑在线评论的产品免费试用策略

商家提供产品免费试用,要求试用者对产品质量进行在线评论,消费者基于在线评论进行购买决策。免费试用者数量越多,在线评论数量越多,消费者对在线评论越信任。考虑在线评论和产品生产成本,研究商家的产品免费试用策略及其对利润的影响。研究发现,虽然商家承受免费试用的产品生产成本损失,但是免费试用产生的在线评论可以使商家更好地按照产品质量制定价格,因此当产品生产成本较低时,提供免费试用可以提高商家利润。产品生产成本提高,商家的最优免费试用数量减少。产品质量不确定性越大或失配距离单位成本越低,免费试用给商家带来的收益越高。     

The dynamics of price, quality and productivity improvement decisions

Although quality has received significant attention during the last decades and its economic benefits are beyond any doubt, lots of questions have remained unanswered as to how much, when, and in what to invest to maintain sustainable competitive advantage. A model is introduced here to guide a firm in addressing these questions. The firm produces a single product and operates in a market where monopolistic competition is effective. Demand for the product in the industry depends on both price and performance quality. Increasing productivity knowledge decreases unit production cost, but demand for the company’s product decreases over time, as competitors will be able to offer products with similar performance. Productivity and quality knowledge can be developed through induced and autonomous learning in order to strengthen company position. The paper provides an optimal control formulation of the problem and develops necessary conditions for optimality and characterizes the dynamics of optimal price, quality and investment decisions.     

Optimal acquisition and production policy in a hybrid manufacturing/remanufacturing system with core acquisition at different quality levels

We study the acquisition and production planning problem for a hybrid manufacturing/remanufacturing system with core acquisition at two (high and low) quality conditions. We model the problem as a stochastic dynamic programming, derive the optimal dynamic acquisition pricing and production policy, and analyze the influences of system parameters on the acquisition prices and production quantities. The production cost differences among remanufacturing high- and low-quality cores and manufacturing new products are found to be critical for the optimal production and acquisition pricing policy: the acquisition price of high-quality cores is increasing in manufacturing and remanufacturing cost differences, while the acquisition price of low-quality cores is decreasing in the remanufacturing cost difference between high- and low-quality cores and increasing in manufacturing and remanufacturing cost differences; the optimal remanufacturing/manufacturing policy follows a base-on-stock pattern, which is characterized by some crucial parameters dependent on these cost differences.     

Optimal strategies for general price-quality decision models of new products with learning production costs

The question of product quality permeates every level of business and is becoming crucial for the survival of modern manufacturing firms in automotive and high-tech industries. In this paper, we deal with the optimal price and quality policies for the introduction of a new product. On the supply side, the firm wants to determine the unit price and quality level over time given that unit cost declines along a learning curve, and increases if quality is made greater. On the demand side, dynamic demand is related to price and quality, as well as to cumulative sales (which represent diffusion and saturation effects). We will model this problem in a general framework that includes several previous results as special cases.By applying the maximum principle, we will derive the optimal price and quality policies and discover the interactions between these two major strategic marketing instruments, and the diffusion process. Several fundamental theoretical results will be established for the model. Under certain specified conditions higher prices do imply higher quality, and under other conditions the optimal price declines over time while the product quality improves. To illustrate these results, the theoretical results are applied to two specific-cases: the first one is a simple nonseparable demand growth function in price and quality, the other is a separable demand function of price and quality.     

Economic design of a complete inspection plan with interactive quality improvement

Consider the monitoring of an ongoing production process subject to complete inspection. Inferior quality products are either reworked or scrapped to assure good outgoing quality. Whenever the quality characteristic of a product exceeds a predetermined action limit, remedial action is taken to restore the process to an in-control state. In addition, the decision maker has a learning opportunity to improve the process by investing in resources to identify and eliminate the causes of deviation from the target quality. Taking a learning action would improve the mean value of the quality characteristic of items produced in an out-of-control state. This paper proposes a cost model to determine the optimal number of learning actions to be taken and the optimal action limit. The model considers the trade-off between quality cost and process improvement cost.     

The implications of costs, capacity, and competition on product line selection

We consider a situation in which a manufacturer has to select the product(s) to sell as well as the selling price and production quantity of each selected product. There are two substitutable products in the consideration set, where product 2 has a higher quality and reservation price than that of product 1. By considering the cannibalization effect that depends on the selling price of each product, the manufacturer needs to evaluate the profit function associated with three different product line options: sell both products or only one of the 2 products. In order to examine the impact of costs, capacity, and competition on the optimal product line selection, optimal price, and optimal production quantity analytically, we present a stylized model in this paper so that we can determine the conditions under which a particular option is optimal.     

Price markdown scheme in a multi-echelon supply chain in a high-tech industry

This paper studies the price markdown scheme in a supply chain that consists of a supplier, a contract manufacturer (CM), and a buyer (retailer). The buyer subcontracts the production of the final product to the CM. The CM buys the components from the supplier and charges the buyer a service fee for the final product produced. The price markdown is made possible by the supplier with the development of new manufacturing technologies that reduce the production cost for the sourced component. Consequently, the buyer adjusts the retail price in order to possibly stimulate stronger demand that may benefit both the supplier and the buyer. Under this scenario, we identify the optimal discount pricing strategies, capacity reservation, and the stocking policies for the supplier and the buyer. We also investigate the optimal inventory decision for the CM to cope with the price discount by considering both demand and delivery uncertainties. Our results suggest that higher production cost accelerates the effects of higher price sensitivity on lowering the optimal capacity and stocking policies in the supply chain. The effect of mean demand error on the optimal prices is relatively marginal compared with that from price sensitivity. We also found that increasing the standard deviation of the random demand does not necessarily increase the stocking level as one would predict. The results show that delivery uncertainty plays an important role in the inventory carried beyond the price break. We discuss potential extensions for future research.     

EPQ with Process Capability and Quality Assurance Considerations

The classical economic production quantity (EPQ) model assumes that items produced are of perfect quality and that the unit cost of production is fixed. However, in realistic situations, product quality is never perfect but is directly affected by the production processes and the quality assurance programme. In addition, the unit production cost is not fixed but increases with quality assurance expenses. We present an EPQ model with imperfect production processes and quality-dependent unit production cost. After discussion of the procedure for determining the optimal solution, a sensitivity analysis of the impacts of the cost parameters on the optimal solution is provided. Finally, the problems associated with cost estimation are addressed.