Optimization and analysis of the profitability of tariff structures with two-part tariffs

Service providers often offer tariff structures with several two-part tariffs that consist of a fixed fee and a usage price, such that consumers may pick the tariff they prefer. Prices of tariffs have significant impacts on service providers’ profit, because they simultaneously influence consumers’ tariff choices and their usage. The number of tariffs also plays an important role, because more tariffs segment the market better but also increase the administrative burden and require more marketing effort. This article presents a mixed-integer nonlinear programming optimization problem to determine profit-maximizing tariffs; compares several heuristic search methods, in particular, the gradient method, stochastic search, and simulated annealing, to solve this problem; analyses the profitability of different tariff structures; and outlines the factors that drive differences in profitability across various tariff structures. The results show that especially for large samples of more than 100 consumers, simulated annealing performs best and deviates only 0.2% from the optimum. Structures with fewer two-part tariffs are generally sufficient, because additional two-part tariffs only negligibly increase service providers’ profit.     

Can core allocations be achieved in avoidable fixed cost environments using two-part price competition?

Two environments are studied in which sellers have only avoidable fixed costs and fixed capacities: (a) in the first, the core exists and is supportable by a competitive equilibrium; (b) in the second, the core exists but there is no competitive equilibrium. In both cases, demand price is constant up to capacity. Experiments using the double auction institution fail to converge to 100% efficiency allocations in either environment. We study a new mechanism in which sellers each submit fixed vendor's fees, which must be paid before units can be sold, as well as a price and corresponding maximum quantity. Buyers submit price-quantity bids. A computing center determines allocations that maximize the aggregate surplus subject to the price, quantity, and vendor fee constraints. We report 20 experiments: 5 inexperienced (45 periods) and 5 experienced (75 periods) subject groups in each of the designs (a) and (b). Buyers are simulated to be fully revealing. The same four sellers participate in both inexperienced and experienced sessions. We explain why this environment proves difficult in these experiments and what we intend to do about it in further iterations.     

Bin packing with general cost structures

Following the work of Anily et?al., we consider a variant of bin packing called bin packing with general cost structures (GCBP) and design an asymptotic fully polynomial time approximation scheme (AFPTAS) for this problem. In the classic bin packing problem, a set of one-dimensional items is to be assigned to subsets of total size at most 1, that is, to be packed into unit sized bins. However, in GCBP, the cost of a bin is not 1 as in classic bin packing, but it is a non-decreasing and concave function of the number of items packed in it, where the cost of an empty bin is zero. The construction of the AFPTAS requires novel techniques for dealing with small items, which are developed in this work. In addition, we develop a fast approximation algorithm which acts identically for all non-decreasing and concave functions, and has an asymptotic approximation ratio of 1.5 for all functions simultaneously.     

Equilibrium analysis of supply chain structures under power imbalance

This paper investigates the implications of channel power on supply chain stability in a setting where multiple suppliers sell substitutable products through a common retailer. Such supply chains have been traditionally analyzed as one- or two-stage Stackelberg non-cooperative games with all suppliers sharing balanced (equal) decision-making power. In this paper, we relax this assumption and formulate game-theoretic models to examine scenarios where one supplier can act as the Stackelberg leader. Consequently, we analyze new supply chain structures and introduce the notion of structure dominance, a novel approach to analyze the performance of supply chains that has practical implications. Thus, a decision maker can employ the concepts of structure dominance to determine whether there exist supply chain scenarios that are more stable than others, i.e., less prone to power reconfigurations, at both agent and group level. We find that power imbalance causes significant declines in supply chain profits, and the more balanced the agents are the higher their profits when demand is linear, regardless of product competition. It develops that neither the Manufacturer Stackelberg nor the Retailer Stackelberg supply chains are stable structures in our generalized setting, but that structures where power is equally split between agents provide for best stability and performance.     

Equilibrium structures of two supply chains with price and displayed-quantity competition

This paper studies the equilibrium structure of two competing supply chains, each of which consists of one manufacturer and one retailer who faces the demand influenced by price and displayed quantity. Each chain has two structure options: integration or decentralization. Under linear demand, we present the optimal pricing/displayed quantity of all members in the two chains under possible structures: two integrated chains (II), two decentralized chains (DD), and one integrated chain and one decentralized chain (ID or DI). We then analyse the impact of the intensities of price and displayed-quantity competition on the equilibrium structure of two supply chains. The results show that both price and displayed-quantity competition intensities influence significantly the equilibrium structure. Moreover, under certain specific conditions, both price and displayed-quantity competition can have the two chains fall into the prisoner’s dilemma and play a game of chicken as well.     

Invariance principles under a two-part mixing assumption

Weak and strong invariance principles are established for strictly stationary sequences satisfying a mixing assumption which has two “parts”, one based on the strong mixing condition with a polynomial mixing rate and the other based on the ϱ-mixing condition.     

A covariance inequality under a two-part dependence assumption

A covariance inequality is proved under a certain “two-part” dependence assumption. It generalizes and sharpens, with a simpler and more transparent proof, two earlier covariance inequalities used in central limit theory under certain “two-part” strong mixing assumptions.     

On the basis property of a two-part trigonometric series

Conditions are presented under which two-part trigonometric systems arising in mixed type equations form a Riesz basis in the space of Lebesgue square integrable functions. For such systems, biorthogonal systems can be obtained in explicit form. As a result, an integral representation of the solution to the Frankl problem in a special domain can be found. The results are extended to two-part systems of broader functions.     

Optimal solutions for the economic lot-sizing problem with multiple suppliers and cost structures

This paper considers a multi-supplier economic lot-sizing problem in which the retailer replenishes his inventory from several suppliers. Each supplier is characterized by one of three types of order cost structures: incremental quantity discount cost structure, multiple set-ups cost structure and all-unit quantity discount cost structure. The problem is challenging due to the mix of different cost structures. For all cases of the problem where each supplier is characterized by one of the first two cost structures, some optimality properties are proposed and optimal algorithms based on dynamic programming are designed. For the case where all suppliers are characterized by all-unit quantity discount cost structures, it is hard to design a polynomial time algorithm by the analyzed optimal properties. However, it is proved that one of its special cases can be solved in polynomial time.     

An integrated inventory model with quality improvement and two-part credit policy

Trade credit financing plays a vital role in current business operations. Vendors extend payment dates to encourage sales, and buyers are not required to pay immediately after receiving products. This is equivalent to receiving a price reduction. Besides, buyers reduce their need for capital from bank loans. In addition, a number of defective products are produced during the production process. The number of defective items influences the on-hand inventory levels of buyers, service levels, and frequency of orders. To ensure that the analysis incorporates a realistic production environment, we developed an integrated inventory model with a two-part trade credit and considered an imperfect production process that can be improved by capital investment. The objective was to determine the optimal ordering, shipping, and quality improvement policies to maximize joint total profit. An iterative algorithm was established to determine the optimal strategy. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis was conducted to examine the effects of changing parameter values on the optimal solution.     

Correlative sparsity structures and semidefinite relaxations for concave cost transportation problems with change of variables

We present a hierarchy of semidefinite programming (SDP) relaxations for solving the concave cost transportation problem (CCTP), which is known to be NP-hard, with p suppliers and q demanders. In particular, we study cases in which the cost function is quadratic or square-root concave. The key idea of our relaxation methods is in the change of variables to CCTPs, and due to this, we can construct SDP relaxations whose matrix variables are of size O((min {p, q}) ^ω ) in the relaxation order ω. The sequence of optimal values of SDP relaxations converges to the global minimum of the CCTP as the relaxation order ω goes to infinity. Furthermore, the size of the matrix variables can be reduced to O((min {p, q}) ^ω-1 ), ω ≥  2 by using Reznick’s theorem. Numerical experiments were conducted to assess the performance of the relaxation methods.     

Reliability measures for two-part partition of states for aggregated Markov repairable systems

Three models for the aggregated stochastic processes based on an underlying continuous-time Markov repairable system are developed in which two-part partition of states is used. Several availability measures such as interval availability, instantaneous availability and steady-state availability are presented. Some of these availabilities are derived by using Laplace transforms, which are more compact and concise. Other reliability-distributions for these three models are given as well.     

A new two-part test based on density ratio model for zero-inflated continuous distributions

In this paper,we consider testing the hypothesis concerning the means of two independent semicontinuous distributions whose observations are zero-inflated,characterized by a sizable number of zeros and positive observations from a continuous distribution.The continuous parts of the two semicontinuous distributions are assumed to follow a density ratio model.A new two-part test is developed for this kind of data.The proposed test takes the sum of one test for equality of proportions of zero values and one conditional test for the continuous distribution.The test is proved to follow a χ~2 distribution with two degrees of freedom.Simulation studies show that the proposed test controls the type I error rates at the desired level,and is competitive to,and most of the time more powerful than two popular tests.A real data example from a dietary intervention study is used to illustrate the usefulness of the proposed test.     

向量均衡问题

本首先引进了集值映射的伪单调性，利用Ky Fan引理以及KKM映射对一般向量均衡问题建立了相应的存在性定理．     

Equilibrium viscoelastic waves

Summary From an asymptotic property of the Fourier integral, it is shown that for any input wave for a one-dimensional viscoelastic medium the waveform will recover its original shape and will propagate with the equilibrium wave speed, provided that the equilibrium modulus exists and the duration of the input wave is long enough.

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Zusammenfassung Wir benutzen eine asymptotische Eigenschaft des Fourierintegrals, um zu zeigen, dass beim ein-dimensionalen viskoelastischen Körper jede Eingangswelle bald in ihrer ursprünglichen Gestalt wiedergewonnen und mit der Geschwindigkeit des Gleichgewichtszustandes propagiert wird, sobald man voraussetzt, dass der Gleichgewichtsmodul existiert und die Eingabezeit hinreichend lang ist.

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Operated by Union Carbide Corporation for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.     

On Efficiency Conditions for Nonsmooth Vector Equilibrium Problems with Equilibrium Constraints

In this article, necessary conditions of Fritz John type for weak efficient solutions of a nonsmooth vector equilibrium problem involving equilibrium constraints (VEPEC) in terms of the Clarke subdifferentials are established. Under constraint qualifications which are suitable for (VEPEC), necessary conditions of Kuhn-Tucker type for efficiency are derived. Under assumptions on generalized convexity of data, sufficient conditions for efficiency are developed. Some applications to vector variational inequalities and vector optimization problems with equilibrium constraints are also given.     

Quantifying the value of buyer–vendor coordination: Analytical and numerical results under different replenishment cost structures

Despite a growing interest in channel coordination, no detailed analytical or numerical results measuring its impact on system performance have been reported in the literature. Hence, this paper aims to develop analytical and numerical results documenting the system-wide cost improvement rates that are due to coordination. To this end, we revisit the classical buyer–vendor coordination problem introduced by Goyal [S.K. Goyal, An integrated inventory model for a single-supplier single-customer problem. International Journal of Production Research 15 (1976) 107–111] and extended by Toptal et al. [A. Toptal, S. Çetinkaya, C.-Y. Lee, The buyer–vendor coordination problem: modeling inbound and outbound cargo capacity and costs, IIE Transactions on Logistics and Scheduling 35 (2003) 987–1002] to consider generalized replenishment costs under centralized decision making. We analyze (i) how the counterpart centralized and decentralized solutions differ from each other, (ii) under what circumstances their implications are similar, and (iii) the effect of generalized replenishment costs on the system-wide cost improvement rates that are due to coordination. First, considering Goyal’s basic setting, we show that the improvement rate depends on cost parameters. We characterize this dependency analytically, develop analytical bounds on the improvement rate, and identify the problem instances in which considerable savings can be achieved through coordination. Next, we analyze Toptal et al.’s [A. Toptal, S. Çetinkaya, C.-Y. Lee, The buyer–vendor coordination problem: modeling inbound and outbound cargo capacity and costs, IIE Transactions on Logistics and Scheduling 35 (2003) 987–1002] extended setting that considers generalized replenishment costs representing inbound and outbound transportation considerations, and we present detailed numerical results quantifying the value of coordination. We report significant improvement rates with and without explicit transportation considerations, and we present numerical evidence which suggests that larger rates are more likely in the former case.