装配系统中的供应商融资:银行贷款vs买方预付款

由多个供应商和一个装配商组成的装配系统中,装配商组装的最终产品需要由供应商提供零部件,不同供应商提供的零部件是互补的。供应商与装配商之间采用批发价格合同,由供应商决定批发价格而装配商决定订货量。供应商的资金是有限的,可能影响其供货能力以及装配系统的效率。供应商可以向银行借款或者由下游装配商提供预付款以缓解其资金约束的不利影响。针对银行贷款的情形,分析了装配系统的均衡订货量与批发价格,并通过图示直观地描述了资金约束对均衡订货量的影响。在装配商提供预付款时,若预付比例为外生变量,则供应商之间的博弈存在存策略纳什均衡,装配系统的绩效与预付比例以及供应商的资金有关;若预付比例是供应商的决策变量,则预付款可有效解决供应商的资金约束,相比于银行贷款,预付款的融资模式可使装配商和装配系统取得更高的利润。

Financing the Suppliers in Assembly System:Bank Lending vs Advance Payment

To assemble the final product, an assembler needs sets of components, each produced by a different supplier. The assembler faces a random demand and purchases the components via a wholesale price contract from the financially constrained suppliers. Before demand is realized, the component suppliers, as Stackelberg leaders, simultaneously decide the wholesale prices for each component and then the assembler, as a follower, choose the order quantity. The suppliers can get financed by either bank loan or advance payment to mitigate the inefficiency caused by the capital constraint. In the bank loan case, the supplier’s profit function is nonsmooth due to the external financing premium and the equilibrium solution is derived by using the concept of subdifferential. The effect of suppliers’ capital constraint on the order quantity is illustrated intuitively in a figure. In the advance payment case, the performance of assembly system depends on the ratios of advance payment if they are exogenous. When the ratios of advance payment are determined by the suppliers, both the assembler and assembly system can obtain higher profit in the advance payment scheme than in the bank loan scheme.