考虑顾客退货时在线企业的定价与订货策略

电子商务环境中,顾客退货是非常普遍的现象,是在线零售企业运营决策不可忽视的重要考虑因素． 以此为背景,本文将顾客退货引入到在线零售企业的单周期和多周期定价订货策 略研究中． 在确定性需求问题中给出了解析解,在随机性需求问题中证明了解的存在唯一性并做了相应的数值试验． 试验结果显示: 单周期情况下,退货率与在线零售企业定价正相关,而与订货量和收益负相关; 价格弹性与在线零售企业定价、收益负相关,对订货量的影响通过一个临界值发生相反的变化; 市场随机波动对在线零售企业的决策行为也有很大影响． 多周期情况下,在线零售企业会在初始期采取低价高订货量策略,而在末期采取高价低订货量策略,退货率越高,企业总收益越低． 同时,针对单周期随机性需求问题,借助期望－方差分析法分析了考虑顾客退货时期望收益的波动,得出风险偏好不同的在线零售企业策略选择有很大不同． 无论哪种情况,努力控制顾客退货率都有利于在线零售企业获得高收益．     

需求预测综合模型及其与库存决策的集成研究

准确的预测有助于企业做出有效的决策,包括生产计划、定价和促销决策等,以减少库存、提高客户满意度和企业竞争力． 以快速消费品为研究对象,分析其需求影响因素,建立了时间序列分析与多元回归整合的需求预测综合模型; 将此预测模型引入到库存决策中,构建了基于库存成本最小的需求预测与库存决策集成模型,并借助变邻域搜索算法获得模型的参数值; 最后,选用实际数据,验证了所构建的需求预测综合模型、物流需求预测与库存决策集成模型及其求解方法的有效性．     

Application and evaluation of packaging postponement strategy to boost supply chain responsiveness: a case study

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate how packaging postponement can be effectively leveraged in a dynamically changing diverse retail market where responsiveness is key. The study also guides about the empirical evaluation of how packaging postponement affects the performance in the sanitary pads supply chain by considering operating measures. The focal company belongs to the Indian Fast Moving Consumer Goods sector, hygiene products category. It examines the measures that are critical to a responsive supply chain and presents a comparative analysis of selected measures before and after implementation. The findings illustrate that the packaging postponement not only improves competitive advantage but also significantly contributes to improving product proliferation and supply chain responsiveness. The study provides understanding of drivers and obstacles for packaging postponement strategy with operational insights about ‘how-to’ implement. Most of modelling-based research studies justify the adoption of postponement through savings in inventory only and underplay on other operating measures. While justifying, studies emphasise ‘form’/manufacturing aspects and underestimate the packaging aspects of postponement. This paper addresses these gap areas by systematically highlighting prerequisites and demonstrates the benefits of adopting a packaging strategy to handle variety and responsiveness in an emerging economy.     

Note on inventory models with Weibull distribution deterioration

This article explores the inventory model with a general demand rate function in which both the Weibull distributed deterioration and partial backlogging are considered. The inventory model discussed here is based on the important finding by Wu [Wu, K.S., 2001. An EOQ inventory model for items with Weibull distribution deterioration, ramp type demand rate and partial backlogging. Production Planning and Control, 12, 787–793]. There are four parts in our research. First, we derive the analytical framework of the inventory model for a general demand rate function1 1.?Based on detailed suggestions of Professor Wafik H. Iskander, Email: whiskander@mail.wvu.edu . Second, for the ramp type demand, we improve Wu's model to find the criterion to guarantee the existence and uniqueness of the optimal solution. Third, we develop a new model to compensate for the missing case in Wu's article. Fourth, we combine our results to show that our findings are applicable to the ramp type demand inventory model, so that the optimal solution is independent of the demand function. Finally, some numerical examples and graphs are provided to illustrate our discovery and demonstrate the application of our analytical framework.     

Quantifying the effectiveness of VMI and integrated inventory management in a supply chain with uncertain lead-times and uncertain demands

This article considers the inventory management problem in a supply chain with uncertain replenishment lead-times and uncertain demands. The optimal integrated inventory management (IIM) policy is developed using stochastic dynamic programming theory. The IIM policy is contrasted with two pull-type vendor-managed inventory policies (VMI-1 and VMI-2) and a traditional retailer-managed inventory policy (RMI). Computational results show that in such stochastic supply chains, IIM performs about 23, 15, and 3% better than the optimised RMI, VMI-1 and VMI-2 policies, respectively, while two VMI policies are about 8 and 20% better than the best RMI. The basestock-based VMI-2 is a very good form of VMI. The ANOVA analysis reveals that the replenishment lead-times have the largest effect on the relative performance between IIM and other policies. Numerical examples demonstrated that the IIM policy has good structural properties and can be characterised by a set of switching curves.     

需求信息不对称下基于战略库存的信息披露与契约选择

在考虑市场需求信息为零售商私有信息的基础上,研究了制造商和零售商之间的两阶段动态博弈问题,其中零售商进行信息披露和战略库存决策,而制造商则决定合适的批发价格承诺契约或动态契约。通过对比分析信息披露与不披露两种情形下不同定价契约的博弈均衡决策及供应链各方利润,发现：零售商在实际市场规模小于其均值时披露需求信息、大于其均值时不披露需求信息;无论零售商是否披露信息,制造商通过使期望利润最大化,始终会选择动态定价契约;信息不披露条件下,若单位库存持有成本大于某一阈值或实际市场规模小于某一阈值,零售商则不会持有战略库存。最终通过数值分析,发现零售商的披露决策总能使供应链的总体利润增加;且信息不披露条件下零售商第一阶段的订货量以及战略库存持有量都要高于信息披露情形,而制造商两阶段的定价始终小于信息披露情形。     

在ARIMA(0,1,1)需求下的牛鞭效应与信息共享的评价

本文考虑一个包含一个供应商和一个零售商的两级供应链,研究在需求模型ARIMA(0,1,1)下牛鞭效应的量化和信息共享的价值,比较信息共享之前和之后的差异,其结果表明信息共享能给供应商带来减轻牛鞭效应、减少现有平均库存以及降低成本等好处。     

A Systematic Uncertainty Analysis of an Evaluative Fate and Exposure Model

Multimedia fate and exposure models are widely used to regulate the release of toxic chemicals, to set cleanup standards for contaminated sites, and to evaluate emissions in life-cycle assessment. CalTOX, one of these models, is used to calculate the potential dose, an outcome that is combined with the toxicity of the chemical to determine the Human Toxicity Potential (HTP), used to aggregate and compare emissions. The comprehensive assessment of the uncertainty in the potential dose calculation in this article serves to provide the information necessary to evaluate the reliability of decisions based on the HTP A framework for uncertainty analysis in multimedia risk assessment is proposed and evaluated with four types of uncertainty. Parameter uncertainty is assessed through Monte Carlo analysis. The variability in landscape parameters is assessed through a comparison of potential dose calculations for different regions in the United States. Decision rule uncertainty is explored through a comparison of the HTP values under open and closed system boundaries. Model uncertainty is evaluated through two case studies, one using alternative formulations for calculating the plant concentration and the other testing the steady state assumption for wet deposition. This investigation shows that steady state conditions for the removal of chemicals from the atmosphere are not appropriate and result in an underestimate of the potential dose for 25% of the 336 chemicals evaluated.     

Value of Information in Closed Loop Supply Chains

We explore the value of information (VOI) in the context of a firm that faces uncertainty with respect to demand, product return, and product recovery (yield). The operational decision of interest in matching supply with demand is the quantity of new product to order. Our objective is to evaluate the VOI from reducing one or more types of uncertainties, where value is measured by the reduction in total expected holding and shortage costs. We start with a single period model with normally distributed demands and returns, and restrict the analysis to the value of full information (VOFI) on one or more types of uncertainty. We develop estimators that are predictive of the value and sensitivity of (combinations of) different information types. We find that there is no dominance in value amongst the different types of information, and that there is an additional pay‐off from investing in more than one type. We then extend our analysis to the multi‐period case, where returns in a period are correlated with demands in the previous period, and study the value of partial information (VOPI) as well as full information. We demonstrate that our results from the single period model (adapted for VOPI) carry‐over exactly. Furthermore, a comparison with uniformly distributed demand and return show that these results are robust with respect to distributional assumptions.     

Heuristic Coordination of Decentralized Inventory Systems Using Induced Backorder Costs

In this paper, we investigate a one‐warehouse multiple‐retailer system, where the inventory control decisions are coordinated using a near optimal induced backorder cost, β*. All installations use continuous review installation‐stock (R, Q) policies. The analysis builds on an approximation model where the stochastic warehouse delays are replaced by their correct averages. The contributions include insights as to how β* is influenced by system parameters, and the determination of simple closed form β* estimates. The latter offering a practical means to achieve coordinated control of large size systems.