Mean-risk analysis of radio frequency identification technology in supply chain with inventory misplacement: Risk-sharing and coordination

This paper investigates the application of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to eliminate the misplacement problems in the supply chain, which consists of a risk-neutral manufacturer and a risk-averse retailer. By considering both fixed cost and tag cost of RFID implementation, we study the agents' incentives to adopt RFID in both uncoordinated and coordinated cases. We focus on analyzing the impact of risk attitudes on the agents’ incentives and on the supply chain coordination. The central semi-deviation is adopted to measure the retailer's risk attitude. In the uncoordinated case, we find that, in order to induce the retailer to adopt RFID, the manufacturer must assume more fixed cost if the retailer is more risk-averse. In the coordinated case, we first show that the standard revenue sharing contract does not always coordinate the channel. If the channel is coordinated, we observe that the agents’ incentives will be perfectly aligned and independent of the risk attitudes, if the revenue sharing ratio equals the fixed cost sharing ratio. Then we propose a risk-sharing contract that offers the risk protection to the retailer, to achieve the channel coordination. An interesting finding is that the manufacturer's incentive will not decrease with the tag cost, if she takes much risk from the retailer. The corresponding impacts of RFID adoption on the two contracts are also analyzed in this paper. Finally, a case study in a tobacco industry is presented to show the real RFID cost in practice.     

Inventory Record Inaccuracy,Double Marginalization,and RFID Adoption

Most retailers suffer from substantial discrepancies between inventory quantities recorded in the system and stocks truly available to customers. Promising full inventory transparency, radio frequency identification (RFID) technology has often been suggested as a remedy to the problem. We consider inventory record inaccuracy in a supply chain model, where a Stackelberg manufacturer sets the wholesale price and a retailer determines how much to stock for sale to customers. We first analyze the impact of inventory record inaccuracy on optimal stocking decisions and profits. By contrasting optimal decisions in a decentralized supply chain with those in an integrated supply chain, we find that inventory record inaccuracy exacerbates the inefficiencies resulting from double marginalization in decentralized supply chains. Assuming RFID technology can eliminate the problem of inventory record inaccuracy, we determine the cost thresholds at which RFID adoption becomes profitable. We show that a decentralized supply chain benefits more from RFID technology, such that RFID adoption improves supply chain coordination.     

基于不同TPL权力的电商供应链决策研究

第三方物流企业受到政府补贴的大力扶持,物流服务显著提升,对消费者网购产生积极影响,逐渐享有供应链话语权。通过分析物流服务供应商的物流成本结构,分别考虑物流投资与物流成本函数,从第三方物流供应链权力视角构建三种电商供应链物流外包权力结构场景(物流服务商主导模式、物流服务商次主导模式和物流服务商跟随模式),综合研究第三方物流企业权力对电商物流外包供应链决策的影响。结果表明,当物流服务商权力越小时,物流服务水平、市场规模、制造商利润和网络零售商利润越大。而不同权力结构下的批发价格、零售价格、物流服务商利润关系受到物流投资系数和物流配送费用的共同影响。当满足条件时,物流服务商跟随模式使得供应链实现帕累托最优。不同第三方物流企业处于不同权力地位时,供应链利润均随物流配送费用的增加、物流投资系数的增加,物流成本系数的减小而增加。据此对不同的物流补贴政策效果进行分析,并为政策制定者和供应链主体提供参考性意见。     

基于RFID技术的供应链投资决策及协调策略研究

本文以单制造商和单零售商组成的两级供应链为研究对象,基于链上成员是否投资RFID技术,考虑四种情景:供应链成员均不投资RFID,仅零售商投资RFID,仅生产商投资RFID及供应链成员共同投资RFID。采用Newsvendor模型建立四种情景时链上成员的收益模型,得出Stackelberg均衡解和供应链成员的最优期望收益,探讨了RFID技术投资对各情景时链上成员收益的影响,得到了供应链成员共同投资RFID时的协调策略。研究表明:当RFID标签成本和零售商库存不准确率在相应的阈值内,零售商或制造商单独投资RFID技术均能提升自身收益,同时对链上其他成员的收益存在"正外部性";此外,收益共享契约能够有效地协调链上成员共同投资RFID技术后的供应链,并且该协调思想丰富并拓展了供应链投资RFID技术的协调研究。     

供应链企业投资RFID技术的成本分摊研究

RFID作为“物联网”的核心技术,其应用已扩展至供应链领域,为供应链管理带来极大的便利。然而目前RFID技术的应用几乎都是上游投资、下游受益,这极大地损害了上游企业投资RFID技术的积极性。为了采用RFID技术有效地管理供应链,其成本的合理分摊是一个迫切需要解决的问题。本文针对适合不同行业的几种典型供应链契约--批发价格契约、收益共享契约、回购契约,分别建立了相应的RFID技术应用的成本分摊模型,通过严密的数学推导,得出了链上企业可承担的RFID技术成本阈值、成本分摊系数区间以及合理的收益分配方案,并获得了相应的管理启示。该研究为供应链企业投资RFID技术提供了科学的成本分摊依据。     

基于RFID技术的双供应链投资决策研究

本文考虑零售商主导的分别由一个供应商和一个零售商组成的两条竞争型供应链中,当两个供应商都未投资RFID技术、只有一个供应商投资RFID技术以及两个供应商同时投资RFID技术时,考虑供应商成本结构的差异,对比分析供应链的投资决策。由于模型解析解过于复杂,本文通过算例分析,着重考虑产品的替代率、RFID标签价格以及库存可获得率三个因素对供应链成员利润的影响。结果表明两条供应链对RFID技术的投资决策会因成本结构和产品替代率的不同而发生变化,其中在两个供应商生产成本差异较大且产品竞争强度较低时,生产成本较高的供应商更愿意投资RFID技术,而生产成本较低的供应商不愿意投资RFID技术,两个零售商则希望使用RFID技术,所以此时仅会有一条供应链上的成员达成一致,决定投资使用RFID技术。     

A review of RFID technology and its managerial applications in different industries

Radio frequency identification (RFID) is an emerging technology that is increasingly being used in supply chain management. RFID technology plays an important role in supporting logistics and supply chain processes because of their ability to identify, trace and track information throughout the supply chain. The technology can provide suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and retailers precise real time information about the products. This accurate knowledge of the inventory would result in lower labor cost, simplified business processes and improved supply chain efficiency. If properly used, it has the potential to cut ordering lead time and cost on inventory control, increase the accuracy of inventory information, help avoid stockouts and boost the number of inventory turns. In this paper, we provide an overview of the current state of RFID applications in different industries and its impact on business operations. We provide extensive literature survey and develop a framework for future research areas in this field.     

A Field Study of RFID Deployment and Return Expectations

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology promises to transform supply chain management. Building on previous research in information systems and supply chain management, this paper proposes a theoretical framework for RFID adoption and benefits, and tests the framework using data on u. s. firms. Our analysis suggests that there is a positive association between information technology (IT) application deployment and RFID adoption. We find that RFID implementation spending and partner mandate are associated with an expectation of early return on RFID investment, and a perceived lack of industry‐wide standards is associated with an expectation of delayed return on RFID investment. These results suggest that firms with broad IT application deployment and a critical mass of RFID implementation spending are more likely to report early returns from RFID deployments. This paper extends previous research to understand the relationship between organization characteristics and adoption and expected benefits of the emerging RFID technology.     

库存成本变化的VMI供应链协调

提出了库存成本变化的经济订货批量(EOQ)模型，基于该模型研究了库存成本变化时供应商管理库存(VMI)系统的最优协议问题。在该系统中，订货商和供应商达成缺货成本共担协议：当缺货发生时，供应商需要向订货商支付缺货补偿。订货商和供应商分散决策，订货商通过设计协议来减少其成本，而供应商通过制定补货决策来缩小自身成本。通过与传统系统和整合系统的比较，得出了库存成本变化时VMI系统的最优补货决策和缺货成本共担协议。采用数值算例验证了分析结果。结果表明，当且仅当供应商预期成本等于整合系统的最小总成本与固定缺货罚金之和时，VMI系统与整合系统具有相同的补货决策和系统绩效，即能够实现供应链协调。     

资金约束供应链RFID投资决策与融资优化

本文以一个供应商和一个存在库存错放的资金约束零售商组成的两级供应链为研究对象,探讨了供应链成员采用无线射频识别（Radio Frequency Identification,RFID）技术的决策及融资选择问题。基于报童模型构建了供应链成员是否采用RFID技术、以及零售商选择贸易信贷融资或银行融资四种情景下的收益模型,求解出链上各成员的最优收益并探讨了RFID采用决策及融资选择策略。研究发现：资金约束零售商通过银行借贷融资可以获得更多的融资金额,但是其选择贸易信贷融资的意愿随着自有资金的减少而增强;当零售商自有资金适中时,随着错放率的上升或RFID成本的降低,零售商从银行融资向贸易信贷融资转变;银行融资在一定程度上能够缓解零售商的库存错放问题。     

The Effect of Earnings‐Based Metrics on Vertical Efficiency

The tendency to rely on accounting earnings as the primary metric of corporate performance has been subject to criticism in recent times. A key concern is that earnings misrepresent changes in value in that cash outlays occur upfront but expenses are recognized only over time. While recognized expenses indeed add up to the initial cash outflow, the equality holds only in undiscounted (nominal), not discounted (real), terms. Accordingly, corporate earnings figures suffer from a form of money illusion. In this paper, we demonstrate that such money illusion can have an upside when it is present in vertical relationships subject to self‐interest. In particular, a buyer who focuses on earnings has incentives to increase purchases since it does not immediately encounter the full cost of cash outflows. These added incentives can promote more efficient trade. We also show that the increased incentives to buy can also lead to Pareto improvements by spurring the supplier to invest more in developing technology. Finally, we demonstrate that judiciously chosen inventory valuation rules can lead to efficient supply chain outcomes. Thus, efficiency can be achieved when supply chain parties freely trade and regulators specify only the accounting rules under which they operate.     

Willingness to Pay for Shifting Inventory Risk: The Role of Contractual Form

In order to reduce their inventory risk, firms can attempt to contract with their suppliers for shorter supply lead‐times, with their buyers for longer demand lead‐times, or both. We designed a controlled laboratory experiment to study contracts that shift a focal firm's inventory risk to its supply chain partners and address two questions. First, is it more effective if the cost of shifting inventory risk is framed as a fixed fee or in per‐unit cost terms? We find that, generally, our participants are willing to pay more to avoid supply–demand mismatches than the expected costs from such mismatches. This tendency to overpay is mitigated under fixed fee schemes. Second, does it matter whether the option to reduce inventory risk is the outcome of either increased responsiveness from the upstream supplier or advanced demand information from the downstream buyer? Our results suggest that this difference, when only a matter of framing, has no significant effect on willingness‐to‐pay.     

Managing Slow‐Moving Perishables in the Grocery Industry

We address the value of information and value of centralized control in the context of a two‐echelon, serial supply chain with one retailer and one supplier that provide a single perishable product to consumers. Our analysis is relevant for managing slow‐moving perishable products with fixed lot sizes and expiration dates of a week or less. We evaluate two supply chain structures. In the first structure, referred to as decentralized information sharing, the retailer shares its demand, inventory, and ordering policy with the supplier, yet both facilities make their own profit‐maximizing replenishment decisions. In the second structure, centralized control, incentives are aligned and the replenishment decisions are coordinated. The latter supply chain structure corresponds to the industry practices of company‐owned stores or vendor‐managed inventory. We measure the value of information and value of centralized control as the marginal improvement in expected profits that a supply chain achieves relative to the case when no information is shared and decision making is decentralized. Key assumptions of our model include stochastic demand, lost sales, and fixed order quantities. We establish the importance of information sharing and centralized control in the supply chain and identify conditions under which benefits are realized. As opposed to previous work on the value of information, the major benefit in our setting is driven by the supplier's ability to provide the retailer with fresher product. By isolating the benefit by firm, we show that sharing information is not always Pareto‐improving for both supply chain partners in the decentralized setting.     

AMBIVALENT INVESTMENT AND THE HOLD‐UP PROBLEM

In this paper we add to the foundations of incomplete contracting literature. We study the hold‐up problem with ambivalent investment, where investment benefits the investing party if ex post the right decision is undertaken but harms the investing party if the wrong decision is made. In this context, we show that the power of contracts to provide investment incentives depends on three factors: the commitment value of contracts, the amount of quasirents that the investing party can expect in the case of out‐of‐contract renegotiation, and the degree of ambivalence of investment. First, contracts provide first‐best investment incentives when parties can commit to a contract regardless of the type of investment. Second, with sufficiently ambivalent investment, if parties cannot commit not to renegotiate a contract and if the investing party's bargaining power is intermediate, contracts cannot improve investment incentives above those provided by no contract. In contrast, a simple buyer or seller option contract is optimal when the investing party's bargaining power is extreme. (JEL: D23, K12, L22)     

基于绿色投资效率的港航供应链投资策略研究

在IMO环境政策约束日趋严格的背景下，绿色投资成为港航企业提升自身竞争优势的方式之一。本文以港口主导的供应链为研究对象，分析三种投资场景与不同成员投资的利益关系，即从绿色技术投资效率对港航供应链的成本效应、绿色技术投入效应、经济效应和市场效应等方面展开分析，最后分析不同投资策略对消费者剩余和社会福利的影响。研究表明：港口绿色技术投资在一定程度上会增加整体供应链的成本投入；当绿色技术投资效率逐步提高时，绿色投入水平不断下降，降低了绿色投入的成本，从而达到“投入高效率，投入水平低增长，整体收益高增长”的投资效果；无论是承运人或是港口进行绿色技术投入，均会增加市场的服务价格，相较于非绿色技术投入，绿色技术投入时会增加整体市场的需求数量；从消费者剩余的角度考虑，承运人绿色技术投入相较于港口绿色技术投入产生的消费者剩余大，也会在一定程度上减少因价格“传递效应”带来的不利影响；从社会福利的角度考虑，虽然绿色投资可能会降低社会福利，但承运人投资产生的社会福利优于港口绿色投资时产生的社会福利；从保护环境的角度，政府的政策制定具有较高的优先级，有助于提升环境收益。研究结果进一步丰富了港航企业绿色投资的研究成果，可为合理权衡绿色技术投资效率，为港口供应链成员的绿色投资决策提供一定的参考，对绿色港口供应链的良性发展具有一定的指导意义。     

Impact of Retailers with Knowledge of Supplier's Inventory on Supply Chain Performance

We model a supply chain consisting of a supplier and multiple retailers facing deterministic demand. We denote some retailers as strategic in the sense that given the supplier inventory information, they will implement the optimal stocking policy by incorporating such information. On the other hand, some retailers are denoted as naïve in the sense that they ignore supply information and resort to a simplistic ordering policy. Naïve retailers learn the optimal policy over time and adjust their orders accordingly. We study the dynamics of this game and investigate the impact of such strategic and naïve retailers on the cost, ordering pattern and stocking policies of all parties. We analyze the supply chain under two scenarios: the centralized supply chain where the objective is to minimize the total supply chain cost, and the decentralized supply chain where each self‐interested player minimizes its own cost in a Stackelberg game setting. We fully characterize the optimal policies under both centralized and decentralized scenarios and show that, surprisingly, the supply chain might be better off by virtue of naïve retailers. The result is driven by the fact that strategic and naïve players’ decisions shift the positioning of inventory in the supply chain with its final impact being determined by the relative costs of different retailer‐types. Our results also offer managerial insights into how access to supply information can improve supply chain performance.     

Supply Performance in Multi‐Echelon Inventory Systems with Intermediate Product Demand: A Perspective on Allocation

In this article, we study the performance of multi‐echelon inventory systems with intermediate, external product demand in one or more upper echelons. This type of problem is of general interest in inventory theory and of particular importance in supply chain systems with both end‐product demand and spare parts (subassemblies) demand. The multi‐echelon inventory system considered here is a combination of assembly and serial stages with direct demand from more than one node. The aspect of multiple sources of demands leads to interesting inventory allocation problems. The demand and capacity at each node are considered stochastic in nature. A fixed supply and manufacturing lead time is used between the stages. We develop mathematical models for these multi‐echelon systems, which describe the inventory dynamics and allow simulation of the system. A simulation‐based inventory optimization approach is developed to search for the best base‐stock levels for these systems. The gradient estimation technique of perturbation analysis is used to derive sample‐path estimators. We consider four allocation schemes: lexicographic with priority to intermediate demand, lexiographic with priority to downstream demand, predetermined proportional allocation, and proportional allocation. Based on the numerical results we find that no single allocation policy is appropriate under all conditions. Depending on the combinations of variability and utilization we identify conditions under which use of certain allocation polices across the supply chain result in lower costs. Further, we determine how selection of an inappropriate allocation policy in the presence of scarce on‐hand inventory could result in downstream nodes facing acute shortages. Consequently we provide insight on why good allocation policies work well under differing sets of operating conditions.     

制造商成本削减策略对风险规避型零售商信息共享策略的影响

考虑一个风险中性制造商和一个风险规避零售商构成的供应链，需求随机且受销售价格的影响。在销售季节之前，零售商对需求进行预测，获取需求信号；制造商对生产进行投资降低生产成本。基于零售商的不同信息共享策略及制造商的投资策略，考虑四种不同策略模型，分别得到最优零售价、批发价（及投资水平），并分析需求预测精确度对供应链成员决策和效用的影响。通过四种模型效用的对比分析，探讨制造商的投资策略以及零售商的风险规避态度对零售商信息共享策略的影响。研究发现，零售商共享需求信息对于制造商总是有益的，且制造商总是愿意采取成本削减策略；只有当制造商采取成本削减策略，且其投资成本系数较低时，共享需求信息对零售商才有益。最后，得到了制造商和零售商的均衡策略。     

基于改进联合采购及配送模型的RFID投资决策研究

随着商品需求差异化加深和物流响应的加快，多品采-配运作效率提升面临挑战。RFID通过实时追踪商品状态实现商品信息全流程共享。但RFID高成本要求在采-配过程中实施RFID需平衡其投资风险和效率回报的关系。因此，本文考虑到实施RFID可提升采-配的订货效率和JIT （Just in Time）效率，研究基于改进联合采购及配送（Joint Replenishment and Delivery，JRD）模型的RFID投资决策问题。改进JRD实现多品联采和多客户联配协同，以RFID投资下总成本最低为目标，获得最佳采购周期和频率。模型通过设计差分进化算法（Differential Evolution，DE）求解，数值实验结果表明：（1） DE在求解精度和速度方面具有优势；（2）实施RFID有助于降低改进JRD模型总成本，但需关注投资规模和回报的均衡；（3）基于JRD全流程的RFID投资效果优于仅部分流程投资效果，且成本越高流程实施RFID的收益潜力越大。     

Item‐Level RFID in the Retail Supply Chain

Analyzing the proliferation of item‐level RFID, recent studies have identified the cost sharing of the technology as a gating issue. Various qualitative studies have predicted that conflict will arise, in particular in decentralized supply chains, from the fact that the benefits and the costs resulting from item‐level RFID are not symmetrically distributed among supply chain partners. To contribute to a better understanding of this situation, we consider a supply chain with one manufacturer and one retailer. Within the context of this retail supply chain, we present analytic models of the benefits of item‐level RFID to both supply chain partners. We examine both the case of a dominant manufacturer as well as the case of a dominant retailer, and we analyze the results of an introduction of item‐level RFID to such a supply chain depending on these market power characteristics. Under each scenario, we show how the cost of item‐level RFID should be allocated among supply chain partners such that supply chain profit is optimized.