Lifecycle Pricing for Installed Base Management with Constrained Capacity and Remanufacturing

Installed base management is the policy in which the manufacturer leases the product to consumers, and bundles repair and maintenance services along with the product. In this article, we investigate for the optimal leasing price and leasing duration decisions by a monopolist when the production and servicing capacity are constrained. The effect of diffusion of consumers in the installed base is considered, with the ownership of the product resting with the monopolist during the product lifecycle. The monopolist operating the installed base jointly optimizes the profits from leasing the product/service bundle along with maintenance revenues and remanufacturing savings. We formulate the manufacturer's problem as an optimal control problem and show that the optimal pricing strategy of the firm should be a skimming strategy. We also find that the effect of remanufacturing savings on the pricing decision and the length of the leasing duration changes significantly depending on the duration of the product's lifecycle. If the product lifecycle is long and remanufacturing savings are low, the firm should offer a shorter leasing duration, whereas if the remanufacturing savings are high, the firm should optimally offer a higher leasing duration. In contrast, if the time duration of the product lifecycle is low and remanufacturing savings are low, the firm prefers to offer a shorter leasing duration, whereas if the remanufacturing savings are high, the firm should optimally have a longer leasing duration. The article also shows that if the production capacity is small, the manufacturer increases the leasing duration. If the production capacity is very small, the manufacturer sets the leasing duration to be equal to the product lifecycle and does not use remanufacturing.     

基于绩效比和合同约束的多阶段在线租赁

签订合同租赁是获得设备临时使用权的一种重要方式。设备承租方往往在不知道设备未来需求的情况下就需要确定合同的预租天数,这是一个在线决策问题。基于绩效比分析和线性分数规划方法,依次研究了合同约束下的单阶段和多阶段在线租赁决策问题,分别得到了最优的在线预租策略及其绩效比。借助于数值算例,进一步分析了日收益、租赁费、交易费和损失费等因素对最优预租策略及其绩效比的影响。研究结果可以为设备承租方确定预租天数提供一定的决策依据,也可以在确定租赁费、损失费等方面为设备出租方提供一定的理论指导。     

多阶段占线赁购问题与竞争分析

经典占线赁购决策是建立在设备使用寿命无限大的假设下进行竞争策略分析,是一种单阶段的占线决策问题。论文把设备使用寿命因素考虑进占线赁购问题,扩展单阶段占线赁购问题为多阶段占线赁购。给出了该问题的离线解;设计了等长赁购策略,证明该策略是唯一最优策略;给出了风险策略基本性质,为进一步研究多阶段占线赁购风险补偿模型奠定了基础。     

Competitive analysis for two-option online leasing problem under sharing economy

With the booming development of sharing economy, decision makers must consider the effect when making decisions with uncertain demands. In the leasing problem, people are faced with several leasing options. Participating in the shared leasing option can reduce the cost of the lessee, which makes it a good choice. This paper considers the online leasing option under sharing economy. By applying competitive analysis to the two-option online leasing problem, the optimal competitive ratios of the deterministic and randomized strategies with market interest rate are obtained, respectively. The theoretical results show that the strategies’ competitive performance is improved under sharing economy. Furthermore, numerical examples are performed to illustrate that considering the shared option has a significant influence on the two-option online leasing problem.

     

通胀市场下多设备租赁的在线策略分析

现实租赁市场中,企业同时租赁多台设备的现象大量存在,但经营者面临的最大难题是如何对这多台设备进行在线租赁的组合优化,从而降低决策成本,而通货膨胀又进一步增加了决策难度。本文运用在线算法和竞争分析法建立多设备投资的风险控制策略,并分析通胀对决策的影响。首先在Karp经典模型上给出通胀因素下多设备投资的最优在线和离线策略;接着建立设备租赁在连续可分情形下的最优风险控制模型,进一步结合实际投资中设备必须以离散整数租赁的特点,对CR策略进行调整和优化,得到近似的CRJ策略,使得策略更符合实际投资活动。最后给出具体实例分析,结果显示,当物价指数逐渐增大时,最优决策日期相应提前,对应最优策略的竞争比也逐渐增大,进一步说明物价指数因素和多设备投资因素的引入对投资者的决策有着重要的影响,为多设备在线租赁问题的研究提供了新的解决思路。     

汽车市场中租赁渠道对传统零售渠道的影响

在零售与租赁混合渠道供应链中,占主导地位的单个汽车制造商向单个零售商和单个租赁商分别销售产品,然后零售商在零售市场销售产品,租赁商在租赁市场出租产品。在两周期设置下根据制造商是否向租赁商提供回购合同,将渠道结构划分为独立式、冲突式和回购式三类,并分析了租赁渠道对传统零售渠道的影响以及对制造商的启示。     

局内租赁问题的风险补偿模型及其竞争分析

将风险的概念引入局内租赁问题中,建立了该问题的风险补偿模型,并对存在和不存在 利率情况下的局内租赁问题作了分析. 和局内问题中传统的竞争比分析不同的是,竞争比分析 只反映局内策略与基准算法(局外最优算法) 的相对绩效,但这往往忽略了很多的有用信息,且 分析模型很不灵活. 然而在风险补偿模型中,投资者可以控制风险,根据自己不同的风险容忍 度和未来预期选择最优的租赁策略     

Revenue Management for Intermodal Transportation: The Role of Dynamic Forecasting

We study a joint capacity leasing and demand acceptance problem in intermodal transportation. The model features multiple sources of evolving supply and demand, and endogenizes the interplay of three levers—forecasting, leasing, and demand acceptance. We characterize the optimal policy, and show how dynamic forecasting coordinates leasing and acceptance. We find (i) the value of dynamic forecasting depends critically on scarcity, stochasticity, and volatility; (ii) traditional mean‐value equivalence approach performs poorly in volatile intermodal context; (iii) mean‐value‐based forecast may outperform stationary distribution‐based forecast. Our work enriches revenue management models and applications. It advances our understanding on when and how to use dynamic forecasting in intermodal revenue management.     

The comparison between trade-in and leasing of a product with technology innovations

Companies can adopt trade-in and/or leasing to shorten consumers׳ upgrade cycle and gain control over secondary markets. In this paper, we consider a monopolistic manufacturer who offers a technology product to a market consisting of heterogeneous consumers. We focus on an exogenous, stochastic innovation process that determines the availability of new technology and consequently, residual value of the current product. We derive the optimal pricing strategy of trade-in and leasing, respectively, examine its impact on the manufacturer׳s expected profit, and compare the performance of the two strategies. Trade-in protects the manufacturer against residual value risk and allows the flexibility of offering the option at different innovation states separately. Leasing, on the other hand, provides the manufacturer an opportunity to circumvent low new product prices and thus increases expected profit when product reuse profitability is high. The interplay between the two forces, product reuse profitability and new product price, determines the preference between trade-in and leasing. Our findings provide monopolistic manufacturers guidance on how to optimally employ the trade-in and leasing strategies.     

Fleet Replacement,Technology Choice,and the Option to Breach a Leasing Contract

We analyze the option to breach a leasing contract when replacing a fleet of ICVs (internal combustion engine vehicles) and EVs (electric vehicles) subject to cost uncertainty. We derive the optimal policy for technology choice and breaching ICV contracts. The decision to breach is shown to offer both cost savings resulting from reduced ICV operating costs and preemptive acquisition, but incurs additional costs arising from the need to compensate for breached vehicles and in the form of opportunity costs. We also demonstrate that the effects of breaching a leasing contract have a ripple effect across the decision horizon, thus amplifying the impact of a single breach. A numerical study based on data from La Poste, the French postal service, shows that breaching a leasing contract in this context offers measurable cost benefits.     

Implications of Channel Structure and Operational Mode Upon a Manufacturer's Durability Choice

Motivated by the observation that durability ratings of automobile manufacturers are not necessarily linked to the proportion of leasing but tend to decrease with the density of their dealer networks, we explore the interactions between channel structure (direct interaction with consumers vs. through an intermediary(ies)) and mode of operations (leasing vs. selling) and their implications for a manufacturer's willingness to invest in making her product more durable. Using a manufacturer who leases her product directly to consumers as a point of reference, we find that an isolated change in either the channel structure (selling through an intermediary), or the operational mode (leasing to selling) can decrease the manufacturer's willingness to provide durability. However, if combined, these two changes together may strengthen the manufacturer's willingness to invest in durability. Specifically, the traditional result that a manufacturer who leases provides more durability than one who sells, can be reversed in a decentralized channel.     

Planning models in the leasing industry

New England Merchants Leasing Corporation, a subsidiary of a bank bolding company, has recently completed the development of a comprehensive computer-based financial planning model. In the present article we discuss the specific requirements for long-range planning in the leasing industry, and the conceptual and technical framework within which the planning model attempts to address these requirements. We identify a number of general characteristics of the leasing industry that are conducive to the success of computer-based systems, in order that the reader may judge the extent to which these characteristics extend to other industries.     

一类占线融资租赁问题的最优竞争策略与风险补偿模型

运用占线算法与竞争分析方法,研究了资产所有权在一定的租赁时间后转移给承租人的融资租赁问题的最优竞争策略与风险补偿模型。首先给出了该问题的最优离线解;然后,根据约定的租赁时限与购买价格及租赁费用的大小关系,分别给出了3种情形的占线策略及相应的竞争比分析;最后,在AL-BINALI提出的占线风险补偿分析框架下,给出了2种预期形式及相应最优占线收益策略。     

Online leasing problem with price fluctuations and the second-hand transaction

Journal of Combinatorial Optimization - This paper proposes an online leasing problem considering both price fluctuations and the second-hand transaction. In the studied problem, the price of the...     

Lease or financial lease? Deterministic strategies for on-line financial lease problem with the second-hand transaction

Journal of Combinatorial Optimization - The residual value of the equipment is an important and inevitable issue for any decision-making process of equipment leasing. In this paper, we present an...     

具有概率分布在线租赁问题策略研究

在经济系统中,决策越来越呈现出在线性特征,传统优化方法在解决这类在线问题时,通常假设未来输入是一随机变量从而寻求概率意义上的最优决策。近年来,在优化领域兴起了一种新的研究方法——在线算法与竞争分析,为解决这类在线问题提供了新的视角,但传统的竞争分析方法有意规避概率分布假设。对于在线租赁决策问题,由于其输入结构简单且具有良好的统计性质,似乎忽略这些有用的信息而只运用标准的竞争比方法分析显然具有不足之处。在本文中,我们将其输入结构的概率分布引入纯竞争分析方法中,从而建立了具有概率情形的最优在线租赁模型,并得到了最优竞争策略及其竞争比。     

Channel Strategies for Durable Goods: Coexistence of Selling and Leasing to Individual and Corporate Consumers

In durable goods markets, such as those for automobiles or computers, the coexistence of selling and leasing is common as is the existence of both corporate and individual consumers. Leases to corporate consumers affect the price of used goods on the second‐hand market which in turn affect the buying and leasing behavior of individual consumers. The setting of prices (or volumes) for sale and lease to individual and corporate consumers is a complicated problem for manufacturers. We consider a manufacturer who concurrently sells and leases a finitely durable good to both individual and corporate consumers. The interaction between the manufacturer and consumers is modeled as a dynamic sequential game, where each player seeks to maximize its own payoff over an infinite horizon. We study how the corporate channel substitutability of new goods and used goods and transaction costs in the second‐hand market affect the manufacturer's pricing decisions, consumer behavior, and social welfare in the retail market. Making a number of simplifying assumptions, including two‐period lifetime for the finitely durable goods, we consider Markov Perfect Equilibrium as the solution concept. We show that the manufacturer can maximize her profit by segmenting consumers according to their willingness to pay. Selling and leasing are the mechanisms used for price discrimination in the retail market. We show that as she leases a larger share of her production to the corporate consumer, (1) the manufacturer does not necessarily have to adjust the optimal selling price of new goods to individual consumers, and the volume of sales of new goods to individual consumers can stay the same; (2) the manufacturer does increase the retail lease price, and the number of individual leases decreases; (3) the net supply of used goods on the market increases, leading to a lower market price for used goods; and (4) more individual consumers are able to participate in the market, and their collective welfare or net utility improves. We also show that as production costs increase the manufacturer increases prices, reducing volumes across all channels. When transaction costs increase, the manufacturer reduces leasing in both corporate and retail channels.     

Towards the price of leasing online

We consider online optimization problems in which certain goods have to be acquired in order to provide a service or infrastructure. Classically, decisions for such problems are considered as final: one buys the goods. However, in many real world applications, there is a shift away from the idea of buying goods. Instead, leasing is often a more flexible and lucrative business model. Research has realized this shift and recently initiated the theoretical study of leasing models (Anthony and Gupta in Proceedings of the integer programming and combinatorial optimization: 12th International IPCO Conference, Ithaca, NY, USA, June 25–27, 2007; Meyerson in Proceedings of the 46th Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS 2005), 23–25 Oct 2005, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, 2005; Nagarajan and Williamson in Discret Optim 10(4):361–370, 2013) We extend this line of work and suggest a more systematic study of leasing aspects for a class of online optimization problems. We provide two major technical results. We introduce the leasing variant of online set multicover and give an \(O\left( \log (mK)\log n\right) \)-competitive algorithm (with n, m, and K being the number of elements, sets, and leases, respectively). Our results also imply improvements for the non-leasing variant of online set cover. Moreover, we extend results for the leasing variant of online facility location. Nagarajan and Williamson (Discret Optim 10(4):361–370, 2013) gave an \(O\left( K\log n\right) \)-competitive algorithm for this problem (with n and K being the number of clients and leases, respectively). We remove the dependency on n (and, thereby, on time). In general, this leads to a bound of \(O\left( l_{\text {max}} \log l_{\text {max}} \right) \) (with the maximal lease length \(l_{\text {max}} \)). For many natural problem instances, the bound improves to \(O\left( K^2\right) \).     

低碳环境下的车辆路径问题及禁忌搜索算法研究

基于节能减排的新视角,本文研究了低碳环境下由第三方提供运输服务的车辆路径问题,在安排车辆路径时,同时考虑了能耗、碳排放和租车费用,而这些费用不仅与距离有关,也与客户点的需求量和车辆速度有关。提出了考虑车辆运量和速度的能耗计算方法,建立了非满载运输方式下的低碳路径模型——LCRP。设计了基于路径划分的禁忌搜索算法RS-TS对问题进行求解,该算法引入了一种新颖的路径编码与解码算法WSS,采用了三种邻域搜索方法。通过基准测试实例验证了算法能有效地找到满意解,并揭示了距离、能耗、行驶时间等参数之间的关系,实验分析表明采用低碳路径安排更加经济环保且选择中低的交通速度更有利于节约能耗和降低碳排放。     

租金费用和购买价格连续可变的在线租赁竞争策略分析

本文运用竞争分析方法研究了占线金融租赁决策问题,已往的研究都是基于租赁设备的租用费用和购买价格不变的情形给出最优投资策略,本文给出了当价格在有界范围内连续可变时的占线投资策略,并对有无利率两种情形分析进行了竞争策略分析,分别给出了其竞争比的上下界。