Complexity of sales effort and carbon emission reduction effort in a two-parallel household appliance supply chain model

This paper studies the complexity of sales effort and carbon emission reduction effort in a Bertrand household appliance supply chain system. A two-parallel model consisting of a traditional supply chain without any carbon emission reduction effort and a low-carbon supply chain with carbon emission reduction effort is established. The chain to chain competition is analyzed in three scenarios, one of which is a horizontal Nash game, and the others are the traditional supply chain Stackelberg game and the low-carbon supply chain Stackelberg game. The optimal solutions of the horizontal Nash game and the Stackelberg game are obtained and three models’ dynamic evolutions based on the bounded rationality are investigated. A dynamic Stackelberg game model with respect to five variables is proposed and investigated via the stable region, the bifurcation, and the maximum Lyapunov exponent. The profits of the two-parallel household appliance supply chains are compared in three dynamic game structures. An interesting phenomenon that the system will enter a six-cycle state after the two-cycle state and fall into chaos directly is discovered in the traditional supply chain Stackelberg game. Our results suggest that the adjustments of price would affect the stability and profits much more than the sales effort and carbon emission reduction effort in all three game structures. Every supply chain should take the suitable adjustment speeds for the price and sales effort to keep the system in the stable state. Each adjustment should not exceed the domain of attraction.     

不同权力结构对制造商双渠道供应链的影响研究

在一个制造商和一个零售商组成的供应链中, 制造商拥有线下传统渠道及线上直销双渠道。首先根据消费者剩余理论, 构建了制造商双渠道需求函数;接着分别构建了两类Stackelberg博弈及Nash博弈三种权力结构下制造商和零售商的利润模型并对模型进行了求解;最后分析了三种不同权力结构对制造商双渠道供应链的影响。研究发现:制造商线上直销渠道价格不受三种博弈权力结构的影响;线下传统渠道零售价格、需求, 线上直销渠道需求及制造商双渠道供应链总利润不受两类Stackelberg博弈权力结构的影响;线下传统渠道零售价格及线上直销渠道需求在Nash博弈权力结构下最小, 而线下传统渠道需求及供应链总利润在Nash博弈权力结构下最大;制造商批发价格、利润及零售商利润对三种博弈权力结构较敏感, 随供应链成员自身博弈权力地位的下降而逐渐降低。     

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.     

Managing raw material in supply chains

In this paper, we explore how firms can manage their raw material sourcing better by developing appropriate sourcing relationships with their raw material suppliers. We detail three empirical case studies of firms explaining their different raw material sourcing strategies: (a) firms can adopt a hands-off approach to raw material management, (b) firms can supply raw material directly to their suppliers, and this may be beneficial for some agents in the supply chain, and (c) firms can bring their component suppliers together, and the resulting cooperation between suppliers can be beneficial for supply chain. We then analytically model the three raw material scenarios encountered in our empirical work, examine the resulting profits along the supply chain, and extend the results to a competitive buyer scenario. Overall, our results show that active management of raw material sourcing can add value to supply chains.     

Reverse supply chain coordination by revenue sharing contract: A case for the personal computers industry

Products that are not recycled at the end of their life increasingly damage the environment. In a collection – remanufacturing scheme, these end-of-life products can generate new profits. Designed on the personal computers industry, this study defines an analytical model used to explore the implications of recycling on the reverse supply chain from an efficiency perspective for all participants in the process. The cases considered for analysis are the two- and three-echelon supply chains, where we first look at the decentralized reverse setting followed by the coordinated setting through implementation of revenue sharing contract. We define customer willingness to return obsolete units as a function of the discount offered by the retailer in exchange for recycling devices with a remanufacturing value. The results show that performance measures and total supply chain profits improve through coordination with revenue sharing contracts on both two- and three-echelon reverse supply chains.     

The effect of supplier capacity on the supply chain profit

In this paper, we study the role of capacity on the efficiency of a two-tier supply chain with two suppliers (leaders, first tier) and one retailer (follower, second tier). The suppliers compete via pricing (Bertrand competition) and, as one would expect in practice, are faced with production capacity. We consider a model with differentiated substitutable products where the suppliers are symmetric differing only by their production capacity. We characterize the prices, production amounts and profits in three cases: (1) the suppliers compete in a decentralized Nash equilibrium game, (2) the suppliers “cooperate” to optimize the total suppliers’ profit, and (3) the two tiers of the supply chain are centrally coordinated. We show that in a decentralized setting, the supplier with a lower capacity may benefit from restricting her capacity even when additional capacity is available at no cost. We also show that the loss of total profit due to decentralization cannot exceed 25 % of the centralized chain profits. Nevertheless, the loss of total profit is not a monotonic function of the “degree of asymmetry” of the suppliers’ capacities. Furthermore, we provide an upper bound on the supplier profit loss at equilibrium (compared with the cooperation setting) that depends on the “market power” of the suppliers as well as their market size. We show that there is less supplier profit loss as the asymmetry (in terms of their capacities) increases between the two suppliers. The worst case arises when the two suppliers are completely symmetric.     

基于货到付款支付模式且考虑银行存贷的二级供应链Stackelberg定价决策

在货到付款支付模式下二级供应链定价决策中,供应链企业资金闲置时向银行存款或资金约束时向银行贷款(银行存贷)的行为是不可忽视的重要因素,如何构建基于货到付款支付模式且考虑银行存贷的二级供应链Stackelberg定价决策模型是需要关注的重要问题。在本文中,首先给出了市场需求函数;然后,基于货到付款支付模式,针对制造商资金或零售商资金约束情形,分别构建针对不同供应链权力结构的定价决策模型;进一步地,通过模型求解确定了不同情形下不同权力结构的制造商与零售商的最优策略,并分析了模型参数对最优策略的影响;最后,针对不同资金约束情形与不同权力结构的最优策略以及银行利率对最优策略及利润影响,给出了对比分析。研究表明三种银行利率均会影响最优策略,且资金约束对象差异的影响明显。     

不同博弈框架下多竞争零售商的双渠道供应链定价决策研究

在Bertrand竞争、Stackelberg竞争及集中决策下,研究由单制造商与多竞争零售商组成的双渠道供应链的定价决策问题。运用两阶段优化技术、博弈论及矩阵论,讨论了多竞争零售商与单制造商在价格方面相互竞争的问题,给出不同市场竞争模式及集中决策下供应链成员的博弈均衡解。对比不同博弈框架及集中决策下供应链成员的定价决策,通过数值实验分析了价格敏感度及零售商个数对最优定价决策和最大利润影响,给出一些管理学理论与见解,为双渠道供应链中各成员的管理者制定最优决策提供理论支持。     

Game-theoretic analyses of decentralized assembly supply chains: Non-cooperative equilibria vs. coordination with cost-sharing contracts

This paper considers a multiple-supplier, single manufacturer assembly supply chain where the suppliers produce components of a short life-cycle product which is assembled by the manufacturer. In this single-period problem the suppliers determine their production quantities and the manufacturer chooses the retail price. We assume that the manufacturer faces a random price-dependent demand in either additive or multiplicative form. For each case, we analyze both simultaneous-move and leader–follower games to respectively determine the Nash and Stackelberg equilibria, and find the globally-optimal solution that maximizes the system-wide expected profit. Then, we introduce appropriate buy-back and lost-sales cost-sharing contracts to coordinate this assembly supply chain, so that when all the suppliers and the manufacturer adopt their equilibrium solutions, the system-wide expected profit is maximized.     

Volume discount pricing strategy in the VMI supply chain with price sensitive demand

This paper develops a volume discount scheme to coordinate Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) supply chains with multiple heterogeneous retailers, in which the supply chain is modelled as a Stackelberg game with price sensitive demand. The paper proposes a method to construct a volume discount price scheme and shows that, any volume discount can be represented as a piecewise constant function of demand. We provide the game formulations of VMI supply chains and develop algorithms to solve this type of game problems, including finding the optimal volume discount scheme. Through a numerical study comparing the results of applying a volume discount strategy with the profits from a single wholesale price strategy, we show that the volume discount pricing strategies can be used to improve profits for all participants in the VMI supply chain in comparison with single price strategies.     

低碳供应链纵向减排合作下的政府补贴策略

为了研究低碳供应链减排合作的政府补贴问题,分别构建了在纳什博弈、斯塔克尔伯格博弈和供应链集中决策三种不同的博弈关系下,政府对制造商和零售商合作减排投入进行补贴的博弈模型。分析了企业的最优减排成本投入和政府的最优补贴率,并进一步讨论了政府补贴行为和企业选择减排合作行为之间的互动博弈。研究显示:政府提供的减排补贴和企业的收益随着供应链上下游合作的紧密程度不同而不同,在纳什博弈下最高,在集中决策下最低,斯塔克尔伯格博弈下介于两者之间。比较了力量不对等供应链中企业分别处于领导者和跟随者时获得的政府补贴的差异。同时在政府补贴行为和供应链企业合作行为的交互博弈中,政府的最优策略是不对任何一方实行减排补贴。     

碳限额与交易机制下受资金约束的供应链优化

在碳限额与交易机制下,研究零售商受资金约束的供应链优化问题。构建了制造商占优的两级供应链Stackelberg博弈模型,通过引入减排成本分担机制,分别给出了分散决策和集中决策的最优解。通过收益共享契约,实现了供应链协调和供应链成员利润的帕累托改善。通过算例分析了不同减排成本分担系数、碳交易价格对供应链利润和订购量、碳减排决策的影响,为供应链各成员开展减排合作提供了理论依据。研究结果表明,供应链成员的合作不仅可以提高供应链总绩效,而且有利于为消费者提供更多、更绿色的产品;碳价格的提高,促使供应链更加努力减排,从而提高了供应链总利润。     

Strategic capability investments and competition for supply contracts

Suppliers often make proactive investments to strategically position themselves to win contracts with a large buyer. Such investments reduce the suppliers’ variable costs of serving the buyer’s demand. We show that an auction mechanism does not always benefit the buyer, the supply chain, or the society. We identify scenarios where the buyer can implement the supply chain and socially optimal solution by committing to a bilateral relationship with fair reimbursement, and forgoing the benefits of competition altogether. We explore the role of commitment by the buyer (to a procurement mechanism) and by the suppliers (to an investment level) by analyzing different timing games under symmetric and asymmetric information about suppliers’ types. We show that it never benefits anyone for the suppliers to commit first. Equilibrium investments and cost structures depend upon the buyer’s bargaining power (opportunity cost). However, the winning supplier’s investments are almost always below the supply chain optimal level.     

供应链链际竞争的研究与发展

本文试图从供应链的结构、竞争的数学经济模型,以及工业应用的领域等三个方向, 概括和介绍国际和国内有关供应链链际竞争的研究工作。其中绝大多数的数学模型是建立 在竞争的各方都是具有相同性质和相同结构的供应链的前提假设下,因此是对称的链际竞 争模型,而且主要局限于二层或者三层的供应链网络。但是我们也特别介绍了一些非对称的模型可以用来研究不同性质和结构的供应链之间的竞争问题。另一个有意义的方向是研 究链内的合作契约在链际竞争中所起到的作用。     

基于随机响应时间及准时交货激励的供应链博弈-协同模型与算法

在供应链战略合作伙伴关系的体系框架下,针对采购双方动态交互决策过程建立了以供应链中核心生产企业为主方,供应商为从方的Stackelberg博弈-协同模型.基于最优性分析讨论了准时采购过程中双方决策的交互影响关系,分析了Stackelberg均衡解的必要条件.最后提出了该模型的内嵌内点法的模拟退火算法.     

The impact of decision timing on the suppliers’ interactions: simultaneous moves <Emphasis Type="Italic">versus</Emphasis> sequential moves

The last few decades have witnessed a huge growth of outsourcing in industry where the downstream firm assigns its production tasks to different upstream suppliers. This makes the supply chain structure more complicated and gives rise to some relevant operational questions. This paper focuses on a supply chain structure that consists of one assembler and two suppliers, and both suppliers’ production yields are stochastic. The assembler delegates the quantity decisions to the suppliers, and the two suppliers choose their production quantities either simultaneously or sequentially. We compare the suppliers’ equilibrium production strategies under these two scenarios. Our results show that the decision sequence can exert significant influences on the firm’s and channel’s equilibrium payoffs. At any given wholesale price, both suppliers produce more components under sequential moves than under simultaneous moves, and this results in higher payoffs for the suppliers, the assembler and the entire supply chain. The supplier’s profit increases if he can make the decision later under sequential moves. From the channel’s perspective, it is more beneficial for the supplier with a higher production cost to make the decision first. The assembler is able to extract more surplus by endogenously setting the wholesale price. However, this may make the suppliers worse off under sequential moves than under simultaneous moves.     

Investigation of a consignment stock and a traditional inventory policy in a three-level supply chain system with multiple-suppliers and multiple-buyers

This paper develops and investigates four coordination scenarios for a three-level supply chain system consisting of multiple suppliers, a vendor, and multiple buyers. One scenario considers consignment stock (CS) agreements between the adjacent levels (suppliers-vendor; vendor-buyers) in the supply chain. Another one considers traditional coordination policies (TP). The two remaining scenarios are combinations of the two; i.e., CS-TP and TP-CS. The scenarios also consider trade credit where an upstream player offers a delay-in-payment to a downstream player. A scheme of equal-sized payments at equal intervals is adopted. Numerical examples are provided to compare between the scenarios and to study the effects of different cases of delay-in-payments on the total profit of the system. A sensitivity analysis is performed to test the effects of varying some parameters on the system's profit. The results showed that a combined coordination policy and paying post the due date return the highest system profit. The differences in the profits for the four scenarios were found to be insignificant under some conditions. This finding may give managers the flexibility to choose the one that is practical and serves its business better.     

An analytical method for cost analysis in multi-stage supply chains: A stochastic network model approach

This paper studies the cost distribution characteristics in multi-stage supply chain networks. Based on the graphical evaluation and review technique, we propose a novel stochastic network mathematical model for cost distribution analysis in multi-stage supply chain networks. Further, to investigate the effects of cost components, including the procurement costs, inventory costs, shortage costs, production costs and transportation costs of supply chain members, on the total supply chain operation cost, we propose the concept of cost sensitivity and provide corresponding algorithms based on the proposed stochastic network model. Then the model is extended to analyze the cost performance of supply chain robustness under different order compensation ability scenarios and the corresponding algorithms are developed. Simulation experiment shows the effectiveness and flexibility of the proposed model, and also promotes a better understanding of the model approach and its managerial implications in cost management of supply chains.     

Alliance or no alliance—Bargaining power in competing reverse supply chains

This work investigates how bargaining power affects negotiations between manufacturers and reverse logistics providers in reverse supply chains under government intervention using a novel three-stage reverse supply chain model for two scenarios, a reverse logistics provider alliance and no reverse logistics provider alliance. Utilizing the asymmetric Nash bargaining game, this work seeks equilibrium negotiation solutions. Analytical results indicate that the reverse logistics provider alliance increases the bargaining power of reverse logistics providers when negotiating with a manufacturer for a profitable recycled-component supply contract; however, manufacturer profits are often reduced. Particularly in the case of an recycled-component vender-dominated market, a reverse logistics alliance with extreme bargaining power may cause a counter-profit effect that results in the decreases of profits for all players involved, including buyers (i.e., manufacturers) and allied recycled-component venders (i.e., reverse logistics providers). Additional managerial insights are provided for discussion.     

线性需求供应链中供应商参股制造商的定价与协调

企业之间通过相互参股组成股权联盟提升收益和竞争力来应对多变的环境成为企业股权改革的趋势。在实际管理实践中,供应链各节点企业通过参股战略以改善各自绩效从而提升供应链效率。本文考虑在线性市场需求环境下,构建了由供应商A与制造商B组成的二级供应链,供应商A对制造商B实施参股战略的供应链模型。引入Stackelberg博弈模型,分别讨论分散式与集中式情况下各节点企业的最优决策。研究表明,供应商A对制造商B参股不能消除供应链双重边际效应,基于此设计了收益共享和线性转移支付的协调契约。该契约通过调整批发价使供应商A与制造商B以任意比例分配系统利润,使供应链完美协调。