A Dynamic Model for Strategically Allocating Retail Space

The allocation of shelf space is a major determinent of a retailer's sales and operating costs. All the existing models of this problem focus on static optimization. But to the retailer, anticipating and adapting to new tastes and changing product life cycles is the central strategic problem. This paper shows how the static model can be extented to incorporate such market dynamics. The new model is more plausible than earlier static models in encouraging the retailer to allocate more space to new products and divest earlier from declining ones.     

Organizational Structure and Firm Innovation in a Retail Chain

Two organizational structures for a retail chain are examined fortheir effect on the rate of firm innovation. A centralized organization isdefined as one in which store practices are mandated from corporateheadquarters (HQ) and this results in HQ being the sole source of new ideas.A decentralized organization gives freedom to store managers to adopt theirown ideas and disseminates innovations made by store managers. Thedifference in average profit between the centralized and decentralizedorganizations is found to be a non-monotonic function of innovativeopportunities. The centralized organization is preferred when innovativeopportunities are moderate while the decentralized organization is preferredwhen such opportunities are rich. Centralization also tends to fare betterin environments in which ideas are relatively complex.     

Allocating energy in a first-to-n match

This paper models a decision where a player must allocate limitedenergy over a contest of uncertain length. The motivating exampleis a squash match where one of the players is not as fit asthe other. Should a player's energy be concentrated in the earlygames of the match? Should it be spread evenly over all possiblegames? Or should it be conserved for the end of the match? Wemodel this as a decision problem where, in each game, the decision-makermust determine how much energy to expend. We assume that thereare only a small number of discrete energy choices for eachgame and that the more energy the decision-maker expends, themore likely he is to win that game. We solve for the optimaldecision with dynamic programming. With only two possible energychoices for each game, we show that it does not matter how energyis expended. In the case where there are three or more energychoices, we show how to take advantage of the structure of theproblem to determine the optimal sequence of decisions. As forpractical advice, the model suggests that when the decision-makerfalls behind in a match, he ought to switch to a more conservativeapproach by dividing his remaining energy evenly among all thepossible remaining games. Received 14 May 2003. Revised 5 January 2004.     

Allocating a joint setup in a multi-cell system

Consider a manufacturing system consisting of multiple cells; each cell processes a certain type of part family. For such systems, we study the problem of optimally allocating a joint setup among these cells. The production process of each cell is modelled by a birth process. Certain monotonicity properties of these birth process are established and used to show that the efficient discrete marginal allocation approach of Fox [1] can be applied here.Supported in part by NSF under grants DMC-8503896 and ECS-8658157, and by ONR under contract N00014-84-K-0465.     

股票价格的马氏链预测模型

本文探讨了马尔科夫链的预测技术,利用马氏链预测方法分析了申华控股(600653)价格的变动情况,对其价格进行短期预测和长期涨跌趋势、运动周期的预测,研究结果与实际情况比较一致。     

考虑服务和退货的双渠道供应链定价问题研究

在考虑零售服务和消费者退货情况下,运用两阶段优化方法分别探究了集中式和分散式两种双渠道供应链的最优定价策略。研究发现零售服务有助于提高零售商的渠道权力,并始终使制造商获益,但只有当服务水平小于某一临界值时,才使制造商和零售商同时得到帕累托改进。零售价格和直销价格与退货率正相关,而与服务水平的关系受渠道结构的影响。服务水平的提高加剧了供应链的“双重边际化”效应,制造商通过生产与消费者需求相匹配的产品来降低退货风险可以减弱这种效应,从而提高供应链效率。     

E-供应链竞争下自营品牌商的第三方零售渠道引入与定价策略

基于电商平台销售渠道的多样性,决策是否引入第三方零售渠道是自营品牌商在现实的E-供应链竞争中常常面临的重要难题。在多渠道竞争环境下,构建由两个自营品牌商和一个电商平台组成的E-供应链系统。考虑品牌商不引入、单一品牌商引入与两个品牌商均引入第三方零售渠道三种情形,分别建立Stackelberg博弈模型并求解,分析了平台佣金、消费者的自营零售渠道偏好和交叉价格弹性系数等因素对第三方零售渠道引入及E-供应链各成员最优策略的影响。研究表明:不同的交叉价格弹性系数和消费者自营渠道偏好对第三方零售渠道引入策略具有差异性,且两个品牌商均引入第三方零售渠道对电商平台最有利。此外,平台佣金、消费者自营渠道偏好和交叉价格弹性系数对自营、第三方商品的定价以及电商平台、品牌商的利润具有重要影响。     

多因素扰动下同价双渠道供应链协调应对突发事件

一条双渠道供应链存在一个传统零售商和一个拥有电子渠道的制造商,制造商采用了跟随零售商线上线下同价的定价策略。通过建立市场需求模型,求出供应链的最优价格、生产数量,利用博弈论和合同理论的原理设计收益共享契约。研究表明,当供应链处于稳定状态时,收益共享契约可以用来实现同价双渠道供应链的协调。当突发事件导致市场规模和制造成本发生扰动时,同价双渠道供应链存在鲁棒性,而收益共享契约也能够很好地协调同价机制下的双渠道分权供应链,最后给出一个算例验证了结论。     

马尔可夫链及其在股市分析中的应用

本文运用马尔可夫链理论预测股票价格分析股市,提出了股价运行周期和投资收益的最大化理论,并建立其随机过程模型,使决策的长期效益趋于最优,通过实例检验,证明了此模型的可行性和实用性.     

基于DEA的中国零售连锁企业经营效率比较研究

本文运用DEA的方法对中国零售连锁上市公司2005～2008年度的经营效率进行了分析。研究表明,在现有的资源和技术条件下,零售连锁企业全要素生产率变化较大,主要是得益于大幅增长的技术进步,而非技术效率的提升;不少企业经营方式仍然比较是粗放,管理上跟不上零售业扩张的步伐。要提升零售连锁企业的经营效率,提高从业人员素质,合理配置资源,提升管理水平势在必行。     

零售与回收双竞争环境下闭环供应链线性转移支付契约研究

利用博弈理论研究了由单个制造商与n个零售商组成的零售与回收均存在竞争的闭环供应链的协调问题,给出了分散决策与集中决策情形下系统成员的最优决策和收益,发现分散决策使闭环供应链系统收益受损;提出了一种线性转移支付契约,实现了闭环供应链的协调.最后,通过一个数值算例验证了研究结论.     

基于IGA的供应链库存成本优化研究

随着市场竞争的加剧,企业之间的竞争已经演变为了供应链之间的竞争.传统的库存管理主要侧重于单个企业的库存最优,而供应链环境下的库存管理需要最大程度地实现供应链的库存整体最优.本文分析了供应链环境下的库存成本结构和供应链内成本,在此基础上,建立了多个供应商、一个核心制造企业、多个分销商的供应链库存成本模型,在分析免疫遗传算法(IGA)原理的基础上,详细说明基于免疫遗传算法的供应链库存成本模型的求解方法,最后通过算例仿真验证了模型和算法的可行性和有效性.     

连锁超市供应商仓库地点合并问题的数学模型及算法

研究了连锁超市供应商仓库地点合并问题.首先基于供应商仓库储存物品的种类提出了定量描述供应商仓库相似性的指标(相似度),进一步根据仓库之间的距离,对供应商仓库相似度进行了修正,得到了修正相似度.分别利用相似度和修正相似度建立了供应商仓库合并问题的数学模型,设计了求解模型的启发式算法.以某连锁超市供应商仓库地点合并问题为例进行了模拟计算和分析,结果显示,利用修正相似度模型得到的计算结果明显优于利用一般相似度模型得到的结果.     

Allocating blood to hospitals from a central blood bank

this paper outlines a method for allocating units of blood from a Regional Blood Transfusion Service to the hospitals of its area, taking into account the characteristics of the hospitals. An integer programming model is used, the matrix of which is proved to be unimodular. The method is shown to reduce expiries significantly.     

Allocating slacks in stochastic PERT network

The SPERT problem was defined, in a game theory framework, as the fair allocation of the slack or float among the activities in a PERT network previous to the execution of the project. Previous approaches tackle with this problem imposing that the durations of the activities are deterministic. In this paper, we extend the SPERT problem into a stochastic framework defining a new solution that tries also to maintain the good performance of some other approaches that have been defined for the deterministic case. Afterward, we present a polynomial algorithm for this new solution that also could be used for the calculation of other approaches founded in the deterministic SPERT literature.     

基于改进Shapley值法的新零售下供应链的利益分配策略

新零售的未来发展会呈现全渠道的发展趋势,将线上线下更深度的融合,创造更多的消费场景.而零售行业的竞争在很大程度上是供应链的竞争,集成更深的供应链,以持续优化的供应链来支持新零售的体验.然而作为虚拟的动态企业联盟,供应链在运作过程中常常会因链上各节点企业追求"自身利益最大化"而进行独立决策,导致整个供应链难以协调,因此建立激励相容利益分配机制、制定科学合理的分配策略成为确保新零售下供应链持续稳定发展的核心.针对新零售下供应链的收益分配问题,在传统Shapley值法的基础上,考虑风险承担、创新资源投入和业务执行度,引入综合修正因子,建立了改进Shapley值法来确定收益分配系数,进而实现新零售下供应链上各主体利益的合理分配,最后通过实际算例进行分析,验证了方法的合理性和有效性.     

Allocating electricity transmission costs through tracing: a game-theoretic rationale

Tracing is a method of assigning flows in an electricity network to particular generators and loads, assuming perfect mixing at each node. It can be used to assign costs to transmission users. We show that the resulting allocation is equal to the Shapley value of an equivalent co-operative game.     

Multicriteria Trade-Offs in a Warehouse/Retailer System

Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methodology is applied to a two-echelon serial inventory/distribution system, consisting of a warehouse and retailer. Different situations, such as deterministic and probabilistic demand, and whether marginal inventory costs are known, are discussed. Three non-linear multiobjective programming models and corresponding solution approaches are presented to obtain non-dominated inventory policies achieving trade-offs among objectives such as customer service, inventory investment and transportation cost. Our results are MCDM generalizations of Brown's exchange curve, Starr and Miller's optimal policy curve and Gardner and Dannenbring's optimal policy surface.     

Allocating unfunded liability in pension valuation under uncertainty

This paper studied the cost allocation for the unfunded liability in a defined benefit pension scheme incorporating the stochastic phenomenon of its returns. In the recent literature represented by Cairns and Parker [Insurance: Mathematics and Economics 21 (1997) 43], Haberman [Insurance: Mathematics and Economics 11 (1992) 179; Insurance: Mathematics and Economics 13 (1993) 45; Insurance: Mathematics and Economics 14 (1994) 219; Insurance: Mathematics and Economics 14 (1997) 127], Owadally and Haberman [North American Actuarial Journal 3 (1999) 105], the fund level is modeled based on the plan dynamics and the returns are generated through several stochastic processes to reflect the current realistic economic perspective to see how the contribution changed as the cost allocation period increased. In this study, we generalize the previous constant value assumption in cost amortization by modeling the returns and valuation rates simultaneously. Taylor series expansion is employed to approximate the unconditional and conditional moments of the plan contribution and fund level. Hence the stability of the plan contribution and the fund size under different allocation periods could be estimated, which provide valuable information adding to the previous works.