Operational Hedging and Diversification under Correlated Supply and Demand Uncertainty

When facing supply uncertainty caused by exogenous factors such as adverse weather conditions, firms diversify their supply sources following the wisdom of “not holding all eggs in one basket.” We study a firm that decides on investment and production levels of two unreliable but substitutable resources. Applying real options thinking, production decisions account for actual supply capabilities, whereas investment decisions are made in advance. To model triangular supply and demand correlations, we adapt the concepts of random capacity and stochastic proportional yield while using concordant ordered random variables. Optimal profit decreases monotonically in supply correlation and increases monotonically in supply–demand correlation. Optimal resource selection, however, depends on the trivariate interplay of supply and demand and responds non‐monotonically to changing correlations. Moreover, supply hedges (i.e., excess capacity at alternative sources) can be optimal even if supply resources are perfectly positively correlated. To accommodate changing degrees of correlation, the firm adjusts the lower margin capacities under random capacity; but under stochastic proportional production capability, it uses either low‐ or high‐margin capacities to create tailored “scale hedges” (i.e., excess capacity at one source which can partially substitute for diversification).     

现货价格和需求关联时期权组合合约模式下采购风险管理策略

在现货价格和客户端需求关联的情形下,本文引用期权组合合约建立现货市场供应量有限时的两阶段采购风险管理模型,以期最大化零售商的期望收益。文中先用逆向归纳法列出零售商第二阶段的最优策略,采用标准扰动定理得出有效合约应满足的最优性条件,并将原模型转化为单调的最短路径问题,应用动态规划求解最优的采购策略。最后用算例分析了现货价格与需求的相关系数及现货市场的供应量对最优策略的影响,发现当供应量一定时,各有效合约的最优预订量及有效合约的总预订量都随着相关系数的增大而提高,并且有效合约受相关系数的影响大小取决于合约的灵活性;并且,当相关系数一定时,有效合约的总预订量及执行价格最低的有效合约的最优预订量都随着供应量的增加而单调减少。     

需求-汇率风险聚集下的汇率风险对冲与批发价激励

以一个由上游制造商和下游零售商组成的二级供应链为建模背景,在汇率风险和需求风险聚集(pooling)在下游零售商的情况下,分别建立了有无批发价激励情形下的两个动态博弈模型,获得了相应的均衡。通过分析相应的均衡,结果表明,(1)在两种情形下,零售商的汇率风险对冲行为具有稳定供应链生产行为的作用,但批发价激励能够提高零售商的汇率风险对冲比例和供应链节点企业间的交易价格;(2)与无批发价激励的情形相比,有批发价激励时的制造商利润较高,从而制造商有使用批发价激励零售商对冲汇率风险的动机;(3)在风险聚集下,"通过较低的批发价来激励零售商对冲汇率风险"这一策略能够实现供应链盈利水平与风险承担之间的权衡:需求和汇率风险增加均会使得供应链节点企业和供应链整体的盈利水平降低,同时也将降低风险聚集处的节点企业和供应链整体的利润方差。     

Capacity Planning with Financial and Operational Hedging in Low‐Cost Countries

The authors of this article outline a capacity planning problem in which a risk‐averse firm reserves capacities with potential suppliers that are located in multiple low‐cost countries. While demand is uncertain, the firm also faces multi‐country foreign currency exposures. This study develops a mean‐variance model that maximizes the firm's optimal utility and derives optimal utility and optimal decisions in capacity and financial hedging size. The authors show that when demand and exchange rate risks are perfectly correlated, a risk‐averse firm, by using financial hedging, will achieve the same optimal utility as a risk‐neutral firm. In this study as well, a special case is examined regarding two suppliers in China and Vietnam. The results show that if a single supplier is contracted, financial hedging most benefits the highly risk‐averse firm when the demand and exchange rate are highly negatively related. When only one hedge is used, financial hedging dominates operational hedging only when the firm is very risk averse and the correlation between the two exchange rates have become positive. With both theoretical and numerical results, this study concludes that the two hedges are strategic tools and interact each other to maximize the optimal utility.     

确定需求下VMI-TPL分销供应链集成库存策略研究

针对VMI在实施中存在的问题,本文将TPL引入VMI,构建了确定需求下,由制造商、TPL和多零售商构成,考虑原材料、产成品的VMI-TPL供应链集成库存模型,并给出了最优生产策略和库存策略.在此基础上,文章进一步讨论了产需比等变量对供应链成本的影响,并比较分析了引入TPL前后VMI的最优策略.研究表明:引入TPL能有效降低供应链平均总成本,避免制造商高库存成本和高运营风险;制造商的产需比(p/d)对TPL引入后的效果影响很大,产需比越大,引入TPL的效果越好.     

Replenishment Policies for Multi‐Product Stochastic Inventory Systems with Correlated Demand and Joint‐Replenishment Costs

This study analyzes optimal replenishment policies that minimize expected discounted cost of multi‐product stochastic inventory systems. The distinguishing feature of the multi‐product inventory system that we analyze is the existence of correlated demand and joint‐replenishment costs across multiple products. Our objective is to understand the structure of the optimal policy and use this structure to construct a heuristic method that can solve problems set in real‐world sizes/dimensions. Using an MDP formulation we first compute the optimal policy. The optimal policy can only be computed for problems with a small number of product types due to the curse of dimensionality. Hence, using the insight gained from the optimal policy, we propose a class of policies that captures the impact of demand correlation on the structure of the optimal policy. We call this class (s, c, d, S)‐policies, and also develop an algorithm to compute good policies in this class, for large multi‐product problems. Finally using an exhaustive set of computational examples we show that policies in this class very closely approximate the optimal policy and can outperform policies analyzed in prior literature which assume independent demand. We have also included examples that illustrate performance under the average cost objective.     

Option Contracts and Capacity Management—Enabling Price Discrimination under Demand Uncertainty

We explore using an option contract as a price discrimination tool under demand uncertainty. In our capacity game model, a monopolistic supplier has to build capacity before observing the uncertain demand. The demand is generated by two potential customers, who privately know their own types. The types could be either high or low, differing in willingness to pay for each unit of demand. To discriminate between the customer types, the supplier designs option contracts so that only the high type will buy options in advance. The high type will do so because the options can hedge their risk of demand loss when capacity is tight. The supplier profits in three ways. First, the high type customers pay higher marginal prices on average. Second, the high type customers' demand is satisfied as a first priority, guaranteeing allocation efficiency. Third, the supplier can observe the number of options being purchased and so determine customer types, improving capacity investment efficiency. We compare our results to those of classical second degree price discrimination. We show that our proposed framework guarantees the same level of supplier profit even when the supplier cannot discriminate between the customers by bundling products.     

Optimal Pricing,Ordering, and Return Policies for Consumer Goods

Our research addresses a firm that sells a product to consumers who are sensitive to both price and return policy. The operational decisions of interest are the selling price, return policy, and quantity of new product to purchase. We model a single selling season that is split into two periods where the boundary between periods is delineated by the opportunity to recover product returns and resell them. That is, returns in the first period can be recovered and sold in the second period. Returns also arise in the second period, but these may only be salvaged. We first analyze both deterministic and stochastic models, finding that the deterministic results largely carry over to the stochastic case. In addition, our results indicate that the model is quite insensitive to errors in the estimates of the parameter values, except for purchase cost and parameters related to demand. Finally, we perform an analysis on the value of various investments to improve financial performance. Results indicate that investments to reduce the recovery cost of returns or reduce returns uncertainty are minimal, while investments to increase recovery speed, reduce market uncertainty, and reduce the return rate can be quite valuable.     

价格柔性合同下的原材料采购策略及风险分析

为了降低原材料价格波动给采购-供应双方企业带来的风险,供应链企业通常采用签订价格合同的方式来共同分担原材料价格波动的风险。本文通过设计价格柔性合同,利用Stackelberg主从博弈模型研究了由一个供应商和一个制造商组成的采购系统的最优采购策略及原材料价格波动风险的分担机制。研究表明,通过实施价格柔性合同可以降低供应双方的风险,且通过设置合理的价格柔性系数可以提高双方的收益。     

基于供应链金融的随机需求条件下的订货策略

本文将供应链金融中的融资问题融入到允许延迟支付的报童模型中,同时考虑了订货商的销售情况对偿还能力的影响,融资利息、销售收入利息以及支付信用期等现金管理要素,建立起订货商在连续随机需求条件下的库存管理模型,通过对模型的求解与灵敏度分析,对供应链金融模式下订货商的订货策略进行了深入探讨,得出了一系列有益的结论。所建立的模型同时为中小销售型企业提供一种新的资金获取以及确定订货策略的方法。     

产需不确定下基于零售商风险规避的三级供应链组合契约模型

针对产需不确定下单一供应商、制造商和风险规避的零售商组成的三级供应链系统,建立了分散和集中情况下的最优决策模型。通过设计风险共担和GL组合契约实现了三级供应链的协调。讨论了风险规避零售商的最优订购决策,分析了风险规避对供应链期望效益的影响。比较了风险规避和风险中性两种情况下零售商的最优决策。探讨了组合契约的协调问题及契约参数之间的关系。研究表明供应链的期望利润随着产需不确定的增加而减少,风险规避下零售商的期望利润低于风险中性时的期望利润,零售商的期望利润随着风险规避程度的加大而减少,零售商最优订购量随风险规避程度的增加而变化。最后数值算例验证了模型和契约协调的有效性。     

基于互联网金融模式的结构性理财产品风险度量研究进展

针对由期权和固定收益类产品组合而成的结构性理财产品,本文基于互联网金融模式对结构性理财产品进行风险度量理论、方法及应用研究进行了分析和述评,并对基于互联网金融环境下用不同分布类型来刻画风险因子相依关系的线性和非线性资产组合的风险集成度量模型进行了归类总结。最后,提出了基于互联网金融模式的结构性理财产品风险度量研究展望。     

风险偏好和需求不确定性对销售努力和补货决策库存系统的影响

研究风险偏好和需求不确定性对库存和销售努力决策库存系统的影响.运用应用概率中的随机比较方法,分别在一阶和二阶随机占优的意义下给出比较需求分布不同两个系统的最优利润和努力水平的充分条件或充分必要条件.证明存在一类需求分布在一定条件下系统的最优利润和努力水平都随需求可变性的增加而增大.数值例子验证了获得的研究结果.     

Safety Stock,Excess Capacity or Diversification: Trade‐Offs under Supply and Demand Uncertainty

Firms mitigate uncertainty in demand and supply by carrying safety stock, planning for excess capacity and diversifying supply sources. In this study, we provide a framework to jointly optimize these three levers in a periodic review infinite horizon setting, and in particular we examine how one can reduce inventory and capacity investments through proper diversification strategies. Observing that a modified base‐stock inventory policy is optimal, we find that the capacity‐diversification problem is well behaved and characterize the optimal mix of safety stock, excess capacity and extra number of supply sources. We find that higher supply uncertainty results in higher safety stock, more excess capacity, and higher diversification. But safety stock and diversification are non‐monotonic in demand uncertainty. Our results can be extended to situations in which suppliers are heterogeneous, and can be used to develop effective heuristics.     

供需不确定条件下基于CVaR的零售商库存鲁棒优化模型

在经典报童模型下考虑供应和需求不确定性,研究了具有风险厌恶的零售商库存优化问题。采用条件风险值(CVaR)对库存绩效进行度量,构建了基于CVaR的零售商库存运作模型;在此基础上,考虑上游供应商供货能力和下游市场需求不确定性,并采用一系列未知概率的离散情景进行描述,给出了供需不确定条件下基于CVaR的零售商库存鲁棒优化模型。进一步,采用区间不确定集对未知情景概率进行建模,给出了基于最大最小准则的鲁棒对应模型。针对同时考虑供需不确定性导致的模型非凸性,采用标准对偶理论将其转化为易于求解的数学规划问题。最后,通过数值计算分析了不同风险厌恶程度和不确定性程度对零售商库存决策以及库存绩效的影响。结果表明,供需不确定性的存在虽然会导致零售商库存绩效损失,但损失值较小。特别地,依据文中模型得到的鲁棒库存策略在多数情况下能够保证零售商获得更优的库存绩效。此外,不确定性和风险厌恶程度的增加虽然会影响零售商库存决策和运作绩效,但在同等风险厌恶态度下,随着不确定性程度的增加,基于文中方法得到的鲁棒库存策略仍能确保零售商获得理想的库存绩效,表明文中所建模型在应对供需不确定性方面具有良好的鲁棒性。     

随机需求直接发运的运输与库存整合优化研究

分销系统的运输与库存整合优化是供应链管理的重要研究课题.本文分析了随机需求两级分销系统的三种配送策略,并具体给出了基于整车直接发运策略的运输决策与库存控制整合优化数学模型,可得到最优的两级最优库存水平和最优的运输频率.最后对给出的算例,利用MATLAB7的规划求解功能容易获得了问题的最优解.     

金融衍生品投资与企业现金流波动风险研究

为了揭示金融衍生品对企业现金流波动风险的影响机制与效应,以我国沪深A股2015~2018年制造业上市公司为研究对象,运用Heckman两阶段回归模型进行实证研究。研究发现:公司使用金融衍生品降低了现金流波动风险;当经营风险大、信息不对称程度高以及代理冲突严重时,其降低幅度更高,揭示出金融衍生品的主体需求和效应差异。进一步分析发现,外汇衍生品和商品衍生品发挥了降低现金流波动风险的作用,而利率衍生品的效应不显著;金融衍生品加剧了特质风险但对系统性风险无显著作用,并且对公司价值未产生显著影响。     

Dynamic Competition With Random Demand and Costless Search: A Theory of Price Posting

This paper studies a dynamic model of perfectly competitive price posting under demand uncertainty. Firms must produce output in advance. After observing aggregate sales in prior periods, firms post prices for their unsold output. In each period, the demand of a new batch of consumers is randomly activated. Existing customers who have not yet bought and then new customers arrive at the market in random order, observe the posted prices, and either purchase at the lowest available price or delay their purchase decision. We construct a sequential equilibrium in which the output produced and its allocation across consumers is efficient. Thus consumers endogenously sort themselves efficiently, with the highest valuations purchasing first. Transaction prices in each period rise continuously, as firms become more optimistic about demand, followed by a market correction. By the last period, prices are market clearing.     

Shareholders' Wealth‐Maximizing Operating Decisions and Risk Management Practices in a Mixed Contracts Economy

This paper establishes a critically important positive role for operations management practices and financial hedging. We show that operations management decisions and financial hedging are intertwined, and we advance a framework that can identify their combined effects on investors' wealth. We show that: (a) firms (publicly traded corporations) will optimally hold adequate riskless working capital (e.g., cash) to minimize the cost of obtaining non‐financial inputs, and the magnitude of this cash holding depends on operating details, and (b) operations management and financial hedging can lower firms' cash requirements, and boost productivity, defined as the wealth created in the firm per dollar of invested capital. Productivity‐enhancing practices—by “freeing up” some of the firm's cash—can maximize the investors' wealth. We show that these results obtain because firms' contracts with many of the providers of non‐financial inputs are not traded, and because investors can invest not just in public corporations but also in businesses “outside the markets” (e.g., proprietorships, partnerships, and private equity).