考虑产品绿色度的双渠道供应链协调研究

本文在消费者需求受价格和产品绿色度影响的背景下,考虑制造商通过提高产品绿色度来扩大需求的情况以及双渠道需求之间的搭便车效应,构建了集中式和分散式博弈模型,并设计了收益共享和成本共担的联合契约协调供应链。研究发现:直销渠道价格和传统渠道价格都会随着产品绿色度的提高而上升,其中直销渠道价格的上升幅度随着搭便车消费者比例的增大而下降,传统渠道价格的上升幅度随着搭便车消费者比例的增大而加快;联合契约的引入能有效地降低直销渠道价格和传统渠道价格,提高产品绿色度和供应链总需求,使供应链总利润达到集中决策时的水平。     

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.     

退款保证对竞争供应链的影响:基于顾客退货行为视角

为研究退款保证对竞争供应链的影响,从顾客退货行为视角构建消费者效用函数,建立竞争制造商与在线零售商之间的博弈模型,分析退款保证对供应链均衡的影响。研究发现:高质量产品的批发价格和零售价格总是更高,但高质量产品制造商可能并不能获得更多利润;退款保证会影响消费者的产品购买选择,对低质量产品需求有利。然而,从利润最大化的角度,在线零售商只有在退货损失足够低时,才会有动机提供退款保证,而退款保证对制造商利润的影响取决于退货产品残值。     

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.     

政府补贴政策下考虑风险规避的绿色供应链定价决策研究

在政府推行补贴政策背景下,通过建立博弈模型研究了政府补贴、制造商和零售商的风险规避对绿色供应链定价策略、产品绿色度、供应链各方利润及整体利润的影响。研究表明:制造商或零售商单方面的风险规避对对方来说都是有利的,但不同的是,仅制造商风险规避时,产品绿色度、批发价格、零售价格及其自身利润都将下降,供应链整体利润则既存在上升也存在下降的情况,当仅零售商风险规避时,产品绿色度、供应链整体利润都将上升,批发价格、零售价格及其自身利润则既存在上升也存在下降的情况;政府增加补贴会在一定程度上加重制造商的风险规避对其自身利润及产品绿色度的损害作用,却会在一定程度上减弱零售商的风险规避对其自身利润的损害作用,并增强零售商的风险规避对产品绿色度的提升作用。     

Chance-constrained activity analysis

The methods of activity analysis (Koopmans [6,7]) are re-examined in the presence of technological uncertainty. In particular, such uncertainty arises when new emerging technologies are employed in the production process and/or when new product designs are being developed. Both input coefficients and output coefficients may be uncertain. If activity levels are to be determined and fixed a priori, one may not be able to require in advance that total output suffice to cover total demand. (Indeed, demand itself may also be uncertain.) Instead, the requirement is written as a chance-constraint, to hold on some predetermined probability level only.The purpose of the present note is to discuss the economic properties of the resulting optimal solution. The certainty equivalent of the chance-constrained program and the corresponding Kuhn-Tucker conditions are written down. At the point of optimum, each producer will hold some inventories of finished goods as a contingency against variation in the output coefficients and in demand. Equilibrium prices will suffice to provide each activity some expected positive profit (an explicit formula for the calculation of the magnitude of this profit is provided).In choosing between several risky activities, each producer may attempt to establish an optimal portfolio of activities, providing a trade-off between expected cost and risk. The nature of an emerging theory of activity portfolios, developed along the lines of standard concepts in financial portfolio analysis, is indicated.     

再制造产品销售渠道决策分析

再制造产品的出现,引出了销售渠道决策的新问题。基于博弈理论,分析比较新制造产品和再制造产品五种渠道结构,得到了五种结构下新制造产品和再制造产品均衡产量和零售价格,以及制造商和零售商的均衡利润。研究结果表明,一般情况下,制造商可以凭借零售商之间的竞争提升自身在供应链的权重,使自己获利。然而当制造商通过两个零售商分开销售新制造产品和再制造产品时,制造商并不能因此而增加自己的利润。对于零售商而言,双边垄断使零售商地位提升,而新制造产品或者再制造产品分开销售都会伤及零售商。数值结果表明,零售商之间的竞争缓和了供应链上下游的双重边际效应,增加了供应链的总利润,同时也提高消费者剩余和社会福利。     

非对称需求信息及零售商竞争下的供应链协调

一个制造商和两个竞争的零售商组成的供应链,分析了市场信息对渠道成员及整个渠道利润的影响.渠道成员获取市场信息能增加自身的利润,以及对其他成员和整个渠道利润的变化.通过一个制造商和两个零售商之间的非完全信息博弈,研究了各成员获取信息能改变渠道利润的重新分配.基于上述分析,给出了供应链协调机制.     

Stackelberg game models between two competitive retailers in fuzzy decision environment

In this paper, we study the pricing problem in a fuzzy supply chain that consists of a manufacturer and two competitive retailers. There is a single product produced by a manufacturer and then sold by two competitive retailers to the consumers. The manufacturer acting as a leader determines the wholesale price, and the retailers acting as the followers set their sale prices independently. Both the manufacturing cost and the demand for product are characterized as fuzzy variables, we analyze how the manufacturer and the retailers make their pricing decisions with the duopolistic retailers’ different behaviors: competition strategy and collusion strategy, and develop the expected value models in this paper. Finally, numerical examples illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed two-echelon models using fuzzy set theory.     

Ordering and pricing of service products in an advance sales system with price-dependent demand

This investigation addresses a service inventory control problem in which a firm orders and sells a service which will be used or consumed by customers on a specific future date. The firm sells the product through an advance booking system, aiming to optimize product price to maximize the total expected profit. Considering situations in which product demand is price-dependent and customers with reservations may cancel advance orders, this work develops a continuous-time model to simultaneously determine the order quantity and selling prices. The analytical results reveal that the optimal ordering quantity and prices are derived via closed-form solutions. In addition, sensitivity analysis of the optimal prices with respect to the system parameters is also conducted to illustrate optimal decision characteristics.     

Dynamic Slotting and Pricing Decisions in a Durable Product Supply Chain

We consider a supply chain in which a manufacturer sells an innovative durable product to an independent retailer over its life cycle. We assume that the product demand follows a Bass-type diffusion process and that it is determined by the market influences, retail price of the product, and shelf space allocated to it. We consider the following retailer profit optimization strategies: (i) the myopic strategy of maximizing the current-period profit and (ii) the far-sighted strategy of maximizing the life-cycle profit. We characterize the optimal dynamic shelf-space allocation and retail pricing policies for the retailer and wholesale pricing policies for the manufacturer. We compute also these policies numerically. Surprisingly, we find that the manufacturer, and sometimes even the retailer, is better off with a myopic retailer strategy in some cases.     

A supply chain model with direct and retail channels

We study a dual channel supply chain in which a manufacturer sells to a retailer as well as to consumers directly. Consumers choose the purchase channel based on price and service qualities. The manufacturer decides the price of the direct channel and the retailer decides both price and order quantity. We develop conditions under which the manufacturer and the retailer share the market in equilibrium. We show that the difference in marginal costs of the two channels plays an important role in determining the existence of dual channels in equilibrium. We also show that demand variability has a major influence on the equilibrium prices and on the manufacturer’s motivation for opening a direct channel. In the case that the manufacturer and the retailer coordinate and follow a centralized decision maker, we show that adding a direct channel will increase the overall profit. Our numerical results show that an increase in retailer’s service quality may increase the manufacturer’s profit in dual channel and a larger range of consumer service sensitivity may benefit both parties in the dual channel. Our results suggest that the manufacturer is likely to be better off in the dual channel than in the single channel when the retailer’s marginal cost is high and the wholesale price, consumer valuation and the demand variability are low.     

Launching new products through exclusive sales channels

When launching a new product, a manufacturer usually sells it through competing retailers under non-exclusive arrangements. Recently, many new products (cellphones, electronics, toys, etc.) are sold through a single sales channel via an exclusive arrangement. In this paper we present two separate models that examine these two arrangements. Each model is based on a Stackelberg game in which the manufacturer acts as the leader by setting the wholesale price and the retailers act as the followers by choosing their retail prices. For each model, we solve the Stackelberg game by determining the manufacturer’s optimal wholesale price and each retailer’s optimal retail price in equilibrium. Then we examine the conditions under which the manufacturer should sell the new product through an exclusive retailer. In addition, we examine the impact of postponing the wholesale price decision and the impact of demand uncertainty on the manufacturer’s optimal profit under both arrangements.     

Time-dependent and independent control rules for coordinated production and pricing under demand uncertainty and finite planning horizons

We address the effect of uncertainty on a manufacturer’s dynamic production and pricing decisions over a finite planning horizon. The demand for products, which depends on their price, is characterized by two stochastic processes: potential demand and customer price sensitivity. An optimal policy for coordinating production and pricing is a time-dependent feedback rule with respect to the state of the manufacturer’s inventories. We show that when the volatility of customer sensitivity to the product price is negligible, the optimal policy can be obtained analytically. Moreover, our simulations demonstrate that the volatility of stochastic customer price sensitivity does not have a strong effect on the manufacturer’s expected profit. Therefore, the solution derived for the case of customer price sensitivity with zero volatility can serve as a good approximation heuristic for the optimal policy if the true volatility of customer price sensitivity is within 40 % of its mean and the volatility of potential demand is within 25 % of its mean. Moreover, under these conditions, a simplified, time-independent control rule deteriorates expected profits by only 1.5 %.     

Channel Coordination with Cooperative Advertising Considering Effect of Advertising on Willingness to Pay

In this paper, cooperative advertising in a manufacturer–retailer supply chain is studied. Advertising can enhance willingness to pay (WTP) of customers. This trade-off between the benefits of increasing WTP of customers and the advertising expenditure is a key to understanding the retailers optimal advertising decision. On the other hand, it is interesting to understand in which condition supporting the retailer for his advertising expenditure is beneficial for the manufacturer. In this study, in order to capture pricing and advertising strategies of the channel member, three non-cooperative games including Nash, Stackelberg retailer and Stackelberg manufacturer game-theoretic models are established. In spite of the related studies which restrict price in order to prevent negative demand, the proposed model allows channel members to increase their prices by enhancing WTP of customers. In this study, contrary to similar additive form demand functions applied in the co-op ad literature which limits their studies for cases that profit function is concave with respect to variables, optimal prices and advertising strategies are obtained for all the solution space. Surprisingly for the very high values of the advertising effect coefficient, a finite optimal advertising expenditure is achieved.     

Incorporating one-way substitution policy into the newsboy problem with imprecise customer demand

This paper presents an approach for solving an inventory model for single-period products with maximizing its expected profit in a fuzzy environment, in which the retailer has the opportunity for substitution. Though various structures of substitution arise in real life, in this study we consider the fuzzy model for two-item with one-way substitution policy. This one-way substitutability is reasonable when the products can be stored according to certain attribute levels such as quality, brand or package size. Again, to describe uncertainty usually probability density functions are being used. However, there are many situations in real world that utilize knowledge-based information to describe the uncertainty. The objective of this study is to provide an analysis of single-period inventory model in a fuzzy environment that enables us to compute the expected resultant profit under substitution. An efficient numerical search procedure is provided to identify the optimal order quantities, in which the utilization of imprecise demand and the use of one-way substitution policy increase the average expected profit. The benefit of product substitution is illustrated through numerical example.     

外包制造下政府补贴对低碳供应链影响分析

为分析外包制造下,政府补贴对低碳供应链竞争的影响,基于低碳产品外包制造,构建一个制造商、一个外包制造商和一个销售商组成的博弈模型。基于此模型,对比分析政府三种补贴策略对两种产品市场竞争机理的影响。研究得到:政府补贴给制造商或销售商时,单位委托制造价格要高于补贴给外包制造商时,也即,当政府采取补贴策略且不补贴给外包制造商时,外包制造商会通过增加单位委托制造价格转移政府补贴;政府补贴策略对单位普通产品批发价格和零售价格无影响,但政府补贴策略会减少普通产品销售量,增加低碳产品销售量;政府补贴虽然减少普通产品收益,但政府补贴增加低碳产品收益,且低碳产品增加收益大于普通产品减少收益,也即政府补贴增加制造商和销售商的利润;政府补贴策略减少两种产品对环境造成的影响,增加消费者剩余和社会剩余。     

Pricing policies for substitutable products in a supply chain with Internet and traditional channels

This study considers pricing policies in a supply chain with one manufacturer, who sells a product to an independent retailer and directly to consumers through an Internet channel. In addition to the manufacturer’s product, the retailer sells a substitute product produced by another manufacturer. Given the wholesale prices of the two substitute products, the manufacturer decides the retail price of the Internet channel, and the retailer decides the retail prices of the two substitute products. Both the manufacturer and the retailer choose their own decision variables to maximize their respective profits. This work formulates the price competition, using the settings of Nash and Stackelberg games, and derives the corresponding existence and uniqueness conditions for equilibrium solutions. A sensitivity analysis of an equilibrium solution is then conducted for the model parameters, and the profits are compared for two game settings. The findings show that improving brand loyalty is profitable for both of the manufacturer and retailer, and that an increased service value may alleviate the threat of the Internet channel for the retailer and increase the manufacturer’s profit. The study also derives some conditions under which the manufacturer and the retailer mutually prefer the Stackelberg game. Based on these results, this study proposes an appropriate cooperation strategy for the manufacturer and retailer.     

基于制造商资金有约束的替代产品的最优生产决策

考虑一个单周期的生产决策模型,在该模型中有一个制造商生产两种可替代的产品.面对随机的市场需求,制造商要在需求到来之前制定出两种产品的生产决策来最大化自己的期望利润.在制造商的资金有、无约束两种情形下,证明了制造商的收益函数的期望是关于两种产品生产数量的凹函数,探讨了资金的约束以及产品的替代给制造商的生产决策所带来的影响,给出了最优生产数量的若干性质.另外,针对需求分布为均匀分布的特殊情形给出了制造商最优生产决策的简单表达形式.     

数量折扣契约下制造商与零售商库存合作联盟的稳定性

针对实际中存在的不同形式合作联盟,研究了零售商库存合作联盟,以及制造商与零售商库存合作联盟所形成混合合作联盟的稳定性。在随机需求情况下,制造商通过自身中心仓库向多个零售商提供数量折扣契约,首先证明了两个合作联盟的最优运作决策都存在且唯一,并给出了制造商向零售商库存合作联盟提供数量折扣契约的形式,然后分析了两种合作联盟的稳定性,并得出混合合作联盟的总期望利润要高于零售商库存合作联盟的结论。