考虑订货协调成本与数量折扣的改良品供应链水平协调

在单个供应商与多个销售商构成的二级改良品供应链中，销售商们采用联合补货方式不仅可以分摊订货成本，而且由于订货批量的增加从而更易获得供应商提供的数量折扣合同。建立多个销售商在独立补货与联合补货中的利润水平函数，推导联合补货优于独立补货的充要条件。将销售商之间的联合补货行为转化成多人合作博弈问题，证明博弈具有的基本性质，设计基于博弈核心的利润分配方法。通过数值算例和敏感性分析验证了文中所构建模型的正确性。     

Competition and Coordination in a Two‐Channel Supply Chain

We study competition and coordination in a supply chain in which a single supplier both operates a direct channel and sells its product through multiple differentiated retailers. We study analytically the supply chain with symmetric retailers and find that the supplier prefers to have as many retailers as possible in the market, even if the retailers' equilibrium retail price is lower than that of the supplier, and even if the number of retailers and their cost or market advantage prevent sales through the direct channel. We find that the two‐channel supply chain may be subject to inefficiencies not present in the single‐channel supply chain. We show that several contracts known to coordinate a single‐channel supply chain do not coordinate the two‐channel supply chain; thus we propose a linear quantity discount contract and demonstrate its ability to perfectly coordinate the two‐channel supply chain with symmetric retailers. We provide some analytical results for the supply chain with asymmetric retailers and propose an efficient solution approach for finding the equilibrium. We find numerically that the supplier still benefits from having more retailers in the market and that linear quantity discount contracts can mitigate supply chain inefficiency, though they no longer achieve perfect coordination.     

Buttressing Supply Chains against Floods in Asia for Humanitarian Relief and Economic Recovery

Floods are the most frequent category of disasters worldwide. Among all geographic regions, Asia has suffered the most. While there are several ongoing humanitarian efforts and initiatives, we believe there is a new opportunity to coordinate “last mile” humanitarian efforts in the event of a flood using micro‐retailers. Because micro‐retailers are the “last mile” nodes in traditional retail supply chains in many Asian countries, we propose the use of social enterprise to buttress these supply chains for distribution of essential goods by coordinating with micro‐retailers before and after floods. We also present a stylized model to quantify the benefits of doing so.     

A Stochastic Inventory Model With Fast‐Ship Commitments

We present a multiperiod model of a retail supply chain, consisting of a single supplier and a single retailer, in which regular replenishment occurs periodically but players have the option to support fast delivery when customers experience a stockout during a replenishment period. Because expedited shipments increase the supplier's transportation cost, and possibly production/inventory costs, the supplier typically charges a markup over and above the prevailing wholesale price for fast‐shipped items. When fast shipping is not supported, items are backordered if customers are willing to wait until the start of the next replenishment period. We characterize the retailers and the supplier's optimal stocking and production policies and then utilize our analytical framework to study how the two players respond to changes in supply chain parameters. We identify a sufficient condition such that the centralized supply chain is better off with the fast‐ship option. We find a range of markups for fast‐ship orders such that the fast‐ship option is preferred by both the supplier and the retailer in a decentralized chain. However, a markup that is a win–win for both players may not exist even when offering fast‐ship option is better for the centralized chain. Our analysis also shows that depending on how the markup is determined, greater customer participation in fast‐ship orders does not necessarily imply more profits for the two players. For some predetermined markups, the retailer's profit with the fast‐ship option is higher when more customers are willing to wait. However, the retailer may not be able to benefit from the fast‐ship option because the supplier may choose not to support the fast‐ship option when fast‐ship participation increases due to the fact that the fast‐ship participation rate adversely affects the initial order size.     

双渠道零售商和传统零售商的定价策略

在单制造商和两个具有竞争行为零售商的供应链系统中，本文研究了双渠道零售商和传统零售商的定价决策问题。首先，在零售商间进行Stackelberg博弈假设前提下，分别针对双渠道零售商和传统零售商作为领导者的情况，构建了两种模式下的零售商定价决策模型，给出了零售商的最优定价策略；其次，分析了零售商在特定情形下的定价策略；最后，用数值算例分析了模型参数对最优结果的影响。通过对比研究和数值算例分析发现：对于零售商来说，作为Stackelberg的领导者时的总利润要比作为追随者时的总利润大；对于供应商而言，传统渠道的零售商做主导者时的总利润要比双渠道零售商做主导者时的总利润大。     

考虑不同经营模式的零售商纵向整合策略选择:前向,后向还是不整合？

随着互联网的发展,"新零售"表现形式之一的纵向整合成为零售商转型升级的重要策略。考虑了产品之间竞争性,分别研究了分销模式、平台模式和混合模式下,零售商采取不进行纵向整合、前向整合和后向整合的利润,通过对比给出零售商最优的纵向整合策略选择条件。最后,分析了不同经营模式对零售商纵向整合策略选择的影响。研究发现：第一,随着潜在需求的增加,在三种经营模式下零售商的最优策略都从不进行纵向整合变为后向整合、前向整合;第二,随着产品之间竞争程度增加,在分销模式和平台模式下,零售商的最优策略从后向整合变为不进行纵向整合、前向整合,在混合模式下,零售商的最优策略从后向整合或不进行纵向整合变为前向整合;第三,随着佣金费率增加,在平台模式下,零售商的最优策略从前向整合变为后向整合、不进行纵向整合,在混合模式下,零售商的最优策略从前向整合或后向整合制造商2变为不进行纵向整合、后向整合制造商1。     

Using Frontier Portfolios to Improve Make‐to‐Order Operations

Make‐to‐order (MTO) manufacturers face a common problem of maintaining a desired service level for delivery at a reasonable cost while dealing with irregular customer orders. This research considers a MTO manufacturer who produces a product consisting of several custom parts to be ordered from multiple suppliers. We develop procedures to allocate orders to each supplier for each custom part and calculate the associated replenishment cost as well as the probability of meeting the delivery date, based on the suppliers' jobs on hand, availability, process speed, and defective rate. For a given delivery due date, a frontier of service level and a replenishment cost frontier are created to provide a range of options to meet customer requirements. This method can be further extended to the case when the delivery due date is not fixed and the manufacturer must “crash” its delivery time to compete for customers.     

Balancing Inventory and Stockout Risk in Retail Supply Chains Using Fast‐Ship

In this study, we consider a two‐retailer, one‐supplier supply chain in which retailers satisfy excess demand by offering to directly ship out‐of‐stock items on an expedited basis at no extra cost to customers. This practice is referred to as the fast‐ship option. We consider two scenarios along with the fast‐ship option. In the first scenario, retailers transship when out of stock, whereas in the second scenario, they do not. If they do not transship, some customers may perform the search on their own. In each scenario, the wholesale prices are either exogenous, or chosen endogenously by the supplier. For both cases, we determine the supplier's and the retailers’ optimal decisions. The key research question we ask and answer is the following: which of the two scenarios is preferred by either player when all decisions are made optimally? We show that when fewer customers are willing to search on their own and wholesale prices are exogenous, both the supplier and the retailers prefer to transship. In addition, the decision maker in a centralized chain will have the exact same preference as that of players in a decentralized setting when the retailers’ and the supplier's preferences coincide and wholesale prices are exogenous. This preference concordance does not hold if wholesale prices are endogenous.     

Assessing Markups,Service Quality,and Product Attributes in Music CDs' Internet Retailing

We investigate trade‐offs among markups, service quality, and product attributes across customer, Internet retailer, and wholesaler echelons. Research has documented the reality of retail price dispersion, but little is known about how retail markups, in particular, are related to service quality and product attributes. For example, do Internet retailers deliver superior service in return for high markups? Do product characteristics affect the relationship between service and markups for retailers? To examine these issues, we first developed a model of Internet retail profitability that separates revenues and costs related to sales from other profit sources. This framework allowed us to position our work alongside the extant literature about Internet retailing. Moreover, it led us to synthesize service quality dimensions found in Internet retailing studies. We subsequently developed a critical‐event study based on the profit model and the synthesis of service quality dimensions to delineate service aspects that retailers should emphasize to address buyers' utility. Finally, we collected data from Internet purchases across retailers to isolate markup‐service quality trade‐offs along our delineated service aspects. We find that high markups are associated with superior performance across service quality dimensions. Furthermore, this trade‐off becomes more acutely defined when products with variable popularity are transacted.     

非瞬时补货下改良品联合采购决策

联合采购往往使订货批量成倍增加,从而更易享受供应商提供的价格折扣,因此联合采购受到零售商们的青睐。考虑由单供应商与多零售商组成的二级改良品供应链中,供应商对零售商提供非瞬时补货,分别建立零售商独立采购与联合采购的单位时间成本函数,求解出两种采购模式的最小单位时间成本并对之进行比较,得到联合采购优于独立采购的必要条件。同时,以联合采购的联盟成本作为分摊对象,应用多人合作博弈理论,将联合采购的成本分摊问题构造成多人合作博弈问题,给出最小核心法的成本分摊思路。通过数值算例演示成本分摊过程,给出净改良率对订货参数及成本参数的敏感性分析,并对四种成本分摊算法的分摊结果作出比较。     

Coordinated Logistics: Joint Replenishment with Capacitated Transportation for a Supply Chain

In this study, we consider the integrated inventory replenishment and transportation operations in a supply chain where the orders placed by the downstream retailer are dispatched by the upstream warehouse via an in‐house fleet of limited size. We first consider the single‐item single‐echelon case where the retailer operates with a quantity based replenishment policy, (r,Q), and the warehouse is an ample supplier. We model the transportation operations as a queueing system and derive the operating characteristics of the system in exact terms. We extend this basic model to a two‐echelon supply chain where the warehouse employs a base‐stock policy. The departure process of the warehouse is characterized in distribution, which is then approximated by an Erlang arrival process by matching the first two moments for the analysis of the transportation queueing system. The operating characteristics and the expected cost rate are derived. An extension of this system to multiple retailers is also discussed. Numerical results are presented to illustrate the performance and the sensitivity of the models and the value of coordinating inventory and transportation operations.     

The value of VMI beyond information sharing in a single supplier multiple retailers supply chain under a non-stationary (Rn,Sn) policy

This study aims to determine the value of vendor-managed inventory (VMI) over independent decision making with information sharing (IS) under non-stationary stochastic demand with service-level constraints. For this purpose, we utilize mixed-integer linear programming formulations to quantify the benefits that can be accrued by a supplier, multiple retailers and the system as a whole by switching from IS to VMI. More specifically, we investigate the incremental value that VMI provides beyond IS in terms of expected cost savings, inventory reductions, and decrease in shipment sizes from the supplier to the retailers by conducting a large number of computational experiments. Results reveal that the decision transfer component of VMI improves these performance measures significantly when the supplier׳s setup cost is low and order issuing efficiency is high. The benefits offered by VMI are negligible under the problem settings where the supplier׳s order issuing efficiency is low and the production setup serves solely a single replenishment under IS.     

基于返回策略的供应链网络竞争绩效研究

针对由多个供应商和多个零售商组成的结构可变的供应链网络,分别在零售商之间基于订货量以及价格两种竞争方式下,分析了供应商均不采用返回策略、部分采用返回策略以及均采用返回策略六种情景下供应链网络的竞争绩效。研究发现当零售商基于订货量竞争时,供应商采用协调策略对于其零售商客户及供应链均为占优策略,零售商更换供应商的成本将会影响供应商的收益以及采用协调策略的积极性;当零售商之间基于价格竞争时,返回策略在一定程度上仍能够激励零售商增加订货量,且对供应链渠道的利润绩效及其稳定性均具有一定的改善作用。     

Potentially self-defeating: Group buying in a two-tier supply chain

Retailers have an incentive to cooperate in the form of group buying (GB) when a supplier provides quantity discounts, because wholesale price under GB depends on total purchasing quantity rather than individual purchasing (IP) quantity. Most previous studies on GB focus on the benefits that buyers get but ignore the supplier׳s response to GB. In this paper, we take the supplier׳s response into consideration, and present a game model with a single supplier and two symmetric competing retailers in two systems: the retailers purchase individually, and the retailers group buy. Under a general quantity discount schedule, each system has a unique sub-game perfect equilibrium. The comparison between IP and GB suggests that GB may sabotage the benefits of all members in the supply chain (i.e., the supplier, the retailers, and the consumer). Retailers may hold contradictory attitudes toward GB before and after the publishing of the discount schedule. These insights are shown to be robust for the case when more than two retailers are involved, as well as the case when the supplier enjoys economies of scale based on the order volume. We suggest that a mixed discount schedule may help prevent the potential damage of GB. In addition, with significant economies of scale, the supplier and retailers may be better off under GB. Then GB can be a favorable purchasing strategy.     

Vertical cost information sharing in a supply chain with value-adding retailers

We consider a supply chain consisting of one supplier and two value-adding heterogeneous retailers. Each retailer has full knowledge about his own value-added cost structure that is unknown to the supplier and the other retailer. Assuming there is no horizontal information sharing between two retailers, we model the supply chain with a three-stage game-theoretic framework. In the first stage each retailer decides if he is willing to vertically disclose his private cost information to the supplier. In the second stage, given the information he has about the retailers, the supplier announces the wholesale price to the retailers. In response to the wholesale price, in the third stage, the retailers optimize their own retail prices and the values added to the product, respectively. Under certain conditions, we prove the existence of equilibrium prices and added values. Furthermore, we obtain the condition under which both retailers are unwilling to vertically share their private information with the supplier, as well as the conditions under which both retailers have incentives to reveal their cost information to the supplier, thus leading to a win–win situation for the whole supply chain.     

Self‐Service Operations at Retail Stores: The Role of Inter‐Customer Interactions

Inter‐customer interactions are important to the operation of self‐services in retail settings. More specifically, when self‐service terminals are used as part of customers’ checkout processes in retail operations without the explicit involvement of retailers as the direct service providers, inter‐customer interactions become a significant managerial issue. In this article, we examine the impact of inter‐customer interactions at retail self‐service terminals on customers’ service quality perceptions and repeat purchase intentions at retail stores. We conduct a scenario‐based experimental design (N = 674) using a 2 × 2 factorial design in which inter‐customer interactions are divided into “positive” vs. “negative” and occur during the “waiting” or during the actual “transaction” stages of self‐services at a retail store. We use attribution theory to develop the hypotheses. The results demonstrate that, through their interactions, fellow customers can exert influences on a focal customer's quality perceptions and repeat purchasing intentions toward a retail store. Furthermore, these influences were impacted by how customers attribute blame or assign responsibility toward the retail store. Service operations managers should leverage these interactions by designing into self‐service settings the capacities and interfaces that are best suited for customers’ co‐production of their self‐service experiences.     

无人零售业态下自动售卖机联合补货策略研究

研究无人零售业态下自动售卖机的多产品联合补货问题，建立由补货成本、库存持有成本、缺货成本构成的平均补货成本模型，分析容量约束与固定补货阈值下的最优补货策略。结果表明，企业会倾向于在剩余较少产品时进行补货，剩余的产品往往是投影面积最小使得相同面积可容纳最多数量的产品；比较最优补货时间与平均补货成本发现，延长补货时间可以降低平均补货成本，在补货阈值越大、固定补货成本越低或售卖机容量越小时，最优补货时间会降低，反之，平均补货成本会增加。此外，分析不同成本变动对平均成本的影响发现，单位成本变动均会引起平均补货成本的增加，且在单位库存持有成本变动时，最优补货策略会发生转移，向单位库存持有成本降低至一定程度的产品或向投影面积最低即相同面积可容纳数量最小的产品转移。     

Coordinating a Supply Chain System with Retailers Under Both Price and Inventory Competition

We investigate a supply chain system with a common supplier selling to downstream retailers who are engaged in both price and inventory competition. We establish the existence and uniqueness of the pure‐strategy Nash equilibrium for the retailer game and study how a supplier can coordinate the system to achieve the best performance. Our main conclusions are as follows: First, a buyback contract can be used to coordinate retailers competing on both price and inventory in a sense that optimal retail prices and inventory levels arise as the Pareto‐dominant equilibrium. With symmetric retailers, the system optimum arises as the unique symmetric equilibrium. Second, the particular type of competition experienced by retailers (price versus inventory competition) affects the characteristics of the contract. Specifically, strong price competition leads to a coordination mechanism with a positive buyback rate, where the supplier subsidizes retailers for leftover inventories; however, strong inventory competition leads to a negative buyback rate, where retailers are punished for overstocking. Using a linear expected demand function, we further explore the impact of system parameters on the coordination contract and the competitive equilibrium. We also find that the performance of the supplier's optimal contract is asymptotic to the system optimal coordination contract as competition becomes fierce.     

Discount Pricing Policies and the Coordination of Decentralized Distribution Systems*

A challenge of supply chain management is to align the objectives, and hence coordinate the activities, of independent supply chain members. In this study, we approach this problem in a simple way by extending traditional quantity discounts that are based solely on buyers' individual order size to discount policies that are based on both buyers' individual order size and their annual volume. We show that discount policies are able to achieve nearly optimal system profit and, hence, provide effective coordination, for a decentralized two‐echelon distribution system, whereby a supplier sells a product to a group of heterogeneous and independent retailers each facing a downward‐sloping demand curve of its retail price. When buyers are heterogeneous, a critical issue of coordination is to motivate different customers to increase their demand and lot size according to their potential so as to improve profits. We show that market heterogeneity presents an effective discriminating factor for the supplier to segment customers in the design of a coordination mechanism.     

The Impact of Information Sharing and Advance Order Information on a Supply Chain with Balanced Ordering

This paper considers a supply chain with one supplier and multiple retailers that face exogenous heterogeneous end‐customer demands, where all parties utilize base‐stock policies. Each retailer is restricted to order once in every order cycle and their orders are replenished in a balanced manner within the cycle. Our study investigates the impact of information sharing and advance order information (AOI) on the supply chain. We find that the supplier benefits from the two mechanisms via two important factors, the information about observed end‐customer demands and the decision on re‐establishing the replenishment sequence. We derive the supplier's optimal sequence for stochastically comparable end‐customer demands with AOI and propose a sequencing rule for the setting with information sharing. Our numerical study examines the cost impacts of two proposed mechanisms on the entire supply chain.