On contracts for VMI program with continuous review (r, Q) policy

Based on continuous review (r, Q) policy, this paper deals with contracts for vendor managed inventory (VMI) program in a system comprising a single vendor and a single retailer. Two business scenarios that are popular in VMI program are “vendor with ownership” and “retailer with ownership”. Taking the system performance in centralized control as benchmark, we define a contract “perfect” if the contract can enable the system to be coordinated and can guarantee the program to be trusted. A revenue sharing contract is designed for vendor with ownership, and a franchising contract is designed for retailer with ownership. Without consideration of order policy and related costs at the vendor site, it is shown that one contract can perform satisfactorily and the other one is a perfect contract. With consideration of order policy and related costs at the vendor site, it is shown that one contract can perform satisfactorily and the performance of the other one depends on system parameters.     

Swedish employment offices: A new model for evaluating effectiveness

We measure how well Swedish employment offices perform in delivering the services required of them by the Swedish government. In contrast to earlier studies we use a dynamic efficiency framework, which allows us to better model the intertemporal nature of these services, explicitly allowing for placements of intermediate nature across periods. Rather than using second stage analysis to assess the effects of varying local labor market conditions and differences in client characteristics on performance, we include a measure of the office’s expected work load directly in the model. This measure, derived from duration analysis, is designed to capture the variation across offices in resources needed before an average individual can obtain employment. It is estimated from the characteristics of all unemployed individual and local labor market conditions.     

Asymptotically optimal dividend policy for regime-switching compound Poisson models

This work develops asymptotically optimal dividend policies to maximize the expected present value of dividends until ruin.Compound Poisson processes with regime switching are used to model the surplus and the switching（a continuous-time controlled Markov chain） represents random environment and other economic conditions.Assuming the switching to be fast varying together with suitable conditions,it is shown that the system has a limit that is an average with respect to the invariant measure of a related Markov chain.Under simple conditions,the optimal policy of the limit dividend strategy is a threshold policy.Using the optimal policy of the limit system as a guide,feedback control for the original surplus is then developed.It is demonstrated that the constructed dividend policy is asymptotically optimal.     

Monotone optimal replacement policies for a Markovian deteriorating system in a controllable environment

We consider the optimal replacement of a periodically inspected system under Markov deterioration that operates in a controlled environment. Provided are sufficient conditions that characterize an optimal control-limit replacement policy with respect to the system’s condition and its environment. The structure of the optimal policy is illustrated by a numerical example.     

Numerical investigation of finite-source multiserver systems with different vacation policies

Systems with vacations are usually modeled and analyzed by queueing theory, and almost all works assume that the customer source is infinite and the arrival process is Poisson. This paper aims to present an approach for modeling and analyzing finite-source multiserver systems with single and multiple vacations of servers or all stations, using the Generalized Stochastic Petri nets model. We show how this high level formalism, allows a simple construction of detailed and compact models for such systems and to obtain easily the underlying Markov chains. However, for real vacation systems, the models may have a huge state space. To overcome this problem, we give the algorithms for automatically computing the infinitesimal generator, for the different vacation policies. In addition, we develop the formulas of the main exact stationary performance indices. Through numerical examples, we discuss the effect of server number, vacation rate and vacation policy on the system’s performances.     

企业雇佣下残疾人就业行为研究——基于就业促进政策的演化博弈分析

融合就业是残疾人可持续发展的关键途径。基于演化博弈理论和残疾人就业促进政策,建立残疾人与用人单位(企业)行为交互过程的动态演化模型,用数值实验展示了初始条件改变和决策变量不同取值对系统演化结果的影响。研究发现,残疾人就业行为路径演化系统收敛于良好状态和“锁定”状态两种模式;调控模型中的参数收敛于不同模式的概率发生显著变化或变化不明显,揭示了现实中残疾人就业治理效果不理想的深层次原因;通过提高残疾人的工资待遇、心理收益、为企业创造的价值,减少残疾人的社会补助与就业付出的人力和社会资本,增加残疾人就业法定比例、企业雇佣残疾人的声誉收益、增值税退税优惠(企业符合退税条件)与雇佣残疾人数量,减少企业支持残疾人的就业投入等均能使系统演化到良好状态的概率增加。这为制定灵活有效的残疾人就业制度、政策与措施提供了较大的操作空间,多元主体协同治理,利益共享,良性互动,以跳出不良“锁定”状态,实现残疾人就业行为良序发展,破解就业难题。     

Inventory control with fixed cost and price optimization in continuous time

We continue to study the problem of inventory control, with simultaneous pricing optimization in continuous time. In our previous paper [8], we considered the case without set up cost, and established the optimality of the base stock-list price (BSLP) policy. In this paper we consider the situation of fixed price. We prove that the discrete time optimal strategy (see [11]), i.e., the (s, S, p) policy can be extended to the continuous time case using the framework of quasi-variational inequalities (QVIs) involving the value function. In the process we show that an associated second order, nonlinear two-point boundary value problem for the value function has a unique solution yielding the triplet (s, S, p). For application purposes the explicit knowledge of this solution is needed to specify the optimal inventory and pricing strategy. Se- lecting a particular demand function we are able to formulate and implement a numerical algorithm to obtain good approximations for the optimal strategy.     

Time,Complex Systems,and Public Policy: A Theoretical Foundation for Adaptive Policy Making

Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Sciences - Can public policy development and implementation be improved by closely tracking and coordinating its timing with that of the regulated sector?...     

Optimal strategy policy in batch arrival queue with server breakdowns and multiple vacations

This paper considers a like-queue production system in which server vacations and breakdowns are possible. The decision-maker can turn a single server on at any arrival epoch or off at any service completion. We model the system by an M^[x]/M/1 queueing system with N policy. The server can be turned off and takes a vacation with exponential random length whenever the system is empty. If the number of units waiting in the system at any vacation completion is less than N, the server will take another vacation. If the server returns from a vacation and finds at least N units in the system, he immediately starts to serve the waiting units. It is assumed that the server breaks down according to a Poisson process and the repair time has an exponential distribution. We derive the distribution of the system size through the probability generating function. We further study the steady-state behavior of the system size distribution at random (stationary) point of time as well as the queue size distribution at departure point of time. Other system characteristics are obtained by means of the grand process and the renewal process. Finally, the expected cost per unit time is considered to determine the optimal operating policy at a minimum cost. The sensitivity analysis is also presented through numerical experiments.     

An optimal service rate in a Poisson arrival queue with two-stage service policy*

We consider a two-stage service policy for a Poisson arrival queueing system. The idle server starts to work with ordinary service rate when a customer arrives. If the number of customers in the system reaches N, the service rate gets faster and continues until the system becomes empty. Otherwise, the server finishes the busy period with ordinary service rate. After assigning various operating costs to the system, we show that there exists a unique fast service rate minimizing the long-run average cost per unit time.This work was supported by Korea Research Foundation Grant(KRF-2002-070-C00021).