Pricing in a supply chain for auction bidding under information asymmetry

We examine a supply chain in which a manufacturer participates in a sealed-bid lowest price procurement auction through a distributor. This form of supply chain is common when a manufacturer is active in an overseas market without establishing a local subsidiary. To gain a strategic advantage in the division of profit, the manufacturer and distributor may intentionally conceal information about the underlying cost distribution of the competition. In this environment of information asymmetry, we determine the equilibrium mark-up, the ex-ante expected mark-up and expected profit of the manufacturer and the equilibrium bid of the distributor. In unilateral communication, we demonstrate the informed agent’s advantage resulting to higher mark-up. Under information sharing, we show that profit is equally shared among the supply chain partners and we explicitly derive the mark-up when the underlying cost distribution is uniform in [0, 1]. The model and findings are illustrated by a numerical example.     

基于合作博弈的组装供应链转移定价策略

研究了由n个供应互补的原料产品的上游供应商和一个组装生产最终产品的下游组装商组成的集团公司内部的转移价格问题。其中下游组装商面临的是一个价格敏感型的需求。每个上游供应商可以独立决策其销售价格,并决定是否以谈判的价格出售原料产品给下游组装商。供应链系统内的所有供应商和组装商都可以自由决定彼此之间是否进行合作。结果表明,在大联盟结构下,供应链的利润是最高的。为了分配大联盟结构下供应链系统总的利润,本文构造了特征函数具有超模性质的合作博弈,并利用Shapley值分配方法给出了整个供应链系统内部的转移价格。     

Coordinating order quantity decisions in the supply chain contract under random demand

In this paper, we are concerned with the coordinating quantity decision problem in a supply chain contract. The supply chain contract is composed of one manufacturer and one retailer to meet the random demand of a single product with a short lifecycle. Our analysis show that the retailer expects to obtain higher profit under proper ordering policies, which can also maximize the expected profit of the supply chain. The manufacturer may induce the retailer to order the coordinated quantity by adjusting the unit return price. As a result, the supply chain is expected to achieve the optimal expected profit.     

竞争环境下随机产出供应商的融资策略研究

考虑由一个制造商和两个竞争性供应商组成的供应链系统,其中一个供应商存在资金短缺的问题,自有资金不足以完成正常生产任务,需要通过融资获得资金完成生产。针对供应链内部和外部两种融资模式,分别构建了供应链成员的收益模型,计算了不同融资方式下的决策结果,并在此基础上对两种融资模式进行了比较分析。结果表明,资金短缺的供应商生产不确定性较低时,供应链成员所能获得的利润较高,并且内部融资下资金短缺的供应商生产积极性高于外部融资。同时发现,对融资方式偏好的不一致将导致制造商利润损失,此时制造商可以采取一定的激励措施引导供应商选择合适的融资方式以提高整体收益。     

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。     

On coordinating an assembly system under random yield and random demand

We consider a decentralized assembly system in which the customer demand and the yield of the suppliers are random. We establish the concavity of expected supply chain profit for arbitrary number of suppliers. We propose two contracts and show that they coordinate the chain under forced compliance. The contracts are mixed type of contracts that include payments from different contract schemes. Particularly, a payment or a penalty to the worst performing supplier seems inevitable. Apart from providing a coordinating contract, we also provide qualitative insights based on a numerical illustration of centralized and decentralized solutions.     

Coordination of cooperative advertising in a two-level supply chain when manufacturer offers discount

We studied the coordination of cooperative advertisement in a manufacturer–retailer supply chain when the manufacturer offers price deductions to customers. With a price sensitive market, the expected demand with cooperative advertising and price deduction is demonstrated. When the manufacturer is a leader, we obtained the optimal national brand name investment, local advertisement and associated manufacturer’s allowance with any given price deduction. When the manufacturer offers more price deduction to customers, the retailer will increase local advertisement if the manufacturer provides the same portion of the local advertising allowance. We obtained the necessary and sufficient condition for the price deduction to ensure an increase of manufacturer’s profit, and a search procedure for determining such an optimal price deduction is provided as well. When the manufacturer and retailer are partners, we obtained the optimal national brand name investment and local advertisement. For any given price deduction, the total profit for the supply chain with cooperative scheme is always higher than that with the non-cooperative scheme. When price elasticity of demand is larger than one, the resulting closed form optimal price deduction with partnership is also obtained. To increase profits for both parties in a supply chain, we recommend that coordination in local and national cooperative advertising with a partnership relationship between manufacturer and retailer is the best solution. The bargaining results show how to share the profit gain between the manufacturer and the retailer, and determine the associated pricing and advertising policies for both parties.     

Optimal contracts and the manufacturer’s pricing strategies in a supply chain with an inequity-averse retailer

Studies in the supply chain literature have typically focused on profit or revenue maximization and assumed that agents within the supply chain are self-interested and only care about their own monetary payoffs. Research in these areas, however, rarely considers an important phenomenon called inequity aversion in which the object pursued by agents within the supply chain is not only their own profit maximization but also the equity of profit allocation. In fact, when agents within a supply chain collaborate with each other to serve a market, the scheme of profit allocation between them usually plays a determinate role in cooperation. Taking into account the impact of agents’ behavior of inequity aversion on the coordination of the supply chain, this paper investigates the optimal contracts and the manufacturer’s pricing strategies in a single-manufacturer and single-retailer supply chain. In this way, we obtain two interesting results: (1) the retailer’s equity aversion largely affects the manufacturer’s decision making, which is not always bad for the manufacturer; and (2) the retailer’s inequity aversion as well as the consumer’s price-sensitive coefficient plays a dominant role in the manufacturer’s decision making.     

A comparison of two sourcing tactics for a new component

We compare two sourcing tactics for a manufacturer to purchase a new component to be used in a one-time production run of a new product with uncertain and price-elastic demand. One alternative is to issue a request-for-quote (RFQ), which is where the manufacturer requests a price-quantity schedule from suppliers. The manufacturer uses this information to determine a production quantity and the number of components to purchase from each supplier. The other alternative is to post a bid specifying how the manufacturer’s purchase quantity will depend on the supplier’s component price. The suppliers use this information to compete on quantity.We find that relative to RFQ, which is more challenging for the manufacturer to characterize the supplier response due to the possibility of supplier interaction, the benefit to the manufacturer from posting a bid increases with the number of suppliers due to increased intensity of competition. If the new component is from an emerging industry where there is little mutual awareness among candidate suppliers, then regardless of number of suppliers, expected manufacturer profit is higher under RFQ. Posting a bid is more likely to benefit the manufacturer when the new component is from a more established industry with a high degree of awareness among candidate suppliers.     

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.     

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.     

Combined pricing and supply chain operations under price-dependent stochastic demand

In this study, we determined product prices and designed an integrated supply chain operations plan that maximized a manufacturer’s expected profit. The computational results of this study revealed that as the variance of the demand distribution increases, a manufacturer will increase its inventory to levels that are greater than the anticipated demand to prevent the potential loss of sales and will simultaneously raise product prices to obtain a greater profit. In the cost minimization approach, the manufacturer may earn the highest possible profits, as determined by the profit optimization approach, only if this firm precisely forecasts the mean market demand for its products. Greater inaccuracies in this forecast will produce lower levels of expected profit.     

基于电商平台的供应链广告决策和分销模式研究

本文建立包含一个制造商和一个电商平台的序贯博弈模型,讨论分销模式对供应链成员广告决策和收益的影响。电商平台中存在两种分销模式:批发模式下制造商将产品卖给平台,平台再进行零售;平台模式下制造商通过平台直接销售产品。另外,制造商和平台都可以选择是否参与广告活动并决定各自的广告投入。研究发现:两种分销模式下供应链成员都应参与广告活动;与批发模式相比,平台模式下制造商广告投入增加而平台广告投入降低。平台佣金率增加一定减小制造商的收益,但只有当制造商的广告效果或平台佣金率较小时,才会增加平台的收益。两种分销模式下供应链的总收益都低于纵向整合供应链的总收益;当平台佣金率适中时,制造商选择平台模式可以实现帕累托改进。     

Green supply chains with carbon trading and environmental sourcing: Formulation and life cycle assessment

Industry practitioners and policy makers are under increasing pressure to continuously reduce the negative environmental impact of their supply chains. An original equipment manufacturer that is concerned with minimizing the environmental impact of its activities should choose its suppliers based on the trade-off between costs and respective emissions. This decision requires the manufacturer to coordinate closely with its suppliers in order to achieve the required level of emissions. In this paper, we develop a mixed integer program for the carbon-sensitive supply chain that minimizes emissions throughout the supply chain by taking into consideration green procurement also known as environmental sourcing. A sample case study is presented with a life cycle assessment of three scenarios based on different carbon emissions costs.     

供应中断风险下采购与定价决策分析

供应中断是供应链上的企业可能面临的问题,运用合理的采购策略可以帮助企业有效缓解供应中断风险。本文研究了供应中断下供应商和制造商之间的纵向竞争和两个制造商之间的横向竞争问题。供应商制定批发价,两个制造商采用不同的采购策略进行产量博弈,其中一个制造商采用紧急双源订货策略,另一个采用可靠单源订货策略。论文采用了多阶段博弈模型,分析了制造商之间的合谋与竞争两种行为,求出了供应商和制造商的最优决策,比较了这两种行为对供应商和制造商的影响。通过数值分析,讨论了成本参数和可靠性参数对于最优订货量的影响以及对于采用不同订货策略的制造商期望利润的影响。     

基于企业环境自我规制的电器电子产品供应链决策与协调

电器电子产品制造商与零部件供应商环境自我规制是供应链获得竞争优势的重要战略,也是实现WEEE源头污染控制的关键。考虑供应商环境自我规制的溢出效应,构建四种不同环境自我规制模式下电器电子产品供应链成员的决策与协调模型,分析供应链成员决策和利润变化。发现分散决策时,制造商与供应商同时进行环境自我规制模式最优,单方企业环境自我规制模式次之,且企业环境自我规制不改变制造商在供应链上的利润优势。单方企业环境自我规制模式下,规制方的利润增量总是小于无规制方。与无环境自我规制模式相比,制造商环境自我规制模式下,供应商存在“敲竹杠”行为。最后,针对供应商和制造商同时进行环境自我规制模型,设计了制造商收益共享契约,激励制造商和供应商提高其环境自我规制水平,实现各企业利润的Pareto改进。     

Establishing Nash equilibrium of the manufacturer–supplier game in supply chain management

We study a game model of multi-leader and one-follower in supply chain optimization where n suppliers compete to provide a single product for a manufacturer. We regard the selling price of each supplier as a pre-determined parameter and consider the case that suppliers compete on the basis of delivery frequency to the manufacturer. Each supplier's profit depends not only on its own delivery frequency, but also on other suppliers' frequencies through their impact on manufacturer's purchase allocation to the suppliers. We first solve the follower's (manufacturer's) purchase allocation problem by deducing an explicit formula of its solution. We then formulate the n leaders' (suppliers') game as a generalized Nash game with shared constraints, which is theoretically difficult, but in our case could be solved numerically by converting to a regular variational inequality problem. For the special case that the selling prices of all suppliers are identical, we provide a sufficient and necessary condition for the existence and uniqueness of the Nash equilibrium. An explicit formula of the Nash equilibrium is obtained and its local uniqueness property is proved.     

公平偏好下考虑供应商质量投入的供应链契约协调

针对传统的基于数量参考标准的奖励惩罚契约无法适应当下“多品种,小批量”的需求特点实现供应链协调,本文建立公平偏好情况下,以供应商提供产品的质量水平为参考标准的奖励惩罚契约模型,探讨其对供应链协调的影响。假设在由单个供应商和单个零售商组成的两级供应链系统中零售商具有公平偏好,分别就供应链内各参与主体渠道力量相等和渠道力量不相等这两种情形进行分析。研究发现零售商对自身收益和对公平的关注程度相同时,供应商和零售商会自愿的按照契约进行合作,取得均衡结果,实现供应链协调,且各参与主体渠道力量的不同会对供应链的整体利润产生显著影响。最后使用算例验证了结论。     

基于最优让步均衡协调策略的供应链差价补偿机制研究

制造商为了激励零售商订购更多数量的产品,会在产品零售价下调时提供给零售商一定的补偿,如何制定最优补偿机制是提高供应链收益的关键问题。为此,建立了两阶段销售差价补偿机制下制造商与零售商的博弈模型,分析了纳什均衡解和Stackelberg均衡解下制造商对零售商的差价补偿机制的决策行为,导出了在最优让步均衡策略下差价补偿机制定量关系,并提出了求解给定差价补偿系数下的近似最优让步均衡策略的算法。通过智能产品算例的分析,表明差价补偿机制能提高供应链的期望收益,增加零售商的订购量,进一步,说明差价补偿机制可以有效地改善零供关系。     

Pareto analysis of supply chain contracts under satisficing objectives

Supply chain coordination has become critical to firms as increased pressure is placed on them to improve performance. We evaluate the performance of Push, Pull, and Advance-purchase discount (APD) contracts in a manufacturer-retailer supply chain where one or both firms have a satisficing objective of maximizing the probability of achieving a target profit. We identify the resulting operational modes of the supply chain and potential conflicts over the preferred contracts under the Push, Pull, and APD contracts. When both firms are satisficing, conflict over the preferred contract arises when the manufacturer has an ambitious profit target or the retailer has a low profit target. We show that the Push contract can result in a large decrease in the expected profit of a risk-neutral manufacturer when the retailer maximizes the probability of achieving her maximum expected profit. We find that a modified buy-back and profit guarantee contracts can provide significant Pareto improvement over Push or APD contracts when the manufacturer is risk-neutral and the retailer is satisficing, while revenue-sharing contracts cannot. In contrast, revenue sharing and modified buy-back contracts are Pareto dominant under certain conditions when the manufacturer is satisficing and the retailer is risk-neutral.