Inventory Management for Customers with Alternative Lead Times

It is common for suppliers operating in batch‐production mode to deal with patient and impatient customers. This paper considers inventory models in which a supplier provides alternative lead times to its customers: a short or a long lead time. Orders from patient customers can be taken by the supplier and included in the next production cycle, while orders from impatient customers have to be satisfied from the on‐hand inventory. We denote the action to commit one unit of on‐hand inventory to patient or impatient customers as the inventory‐commitment decision, and the initial inventory stocking as the inventory‐replenishment decision. We first characterize the optimal inventory‐commitment policy as a threshold type, and then prove that the optimal inventory‐replenishment policy is a base‐stock type. Then, we extend our analysis to models to consider cases of a multi‐cycle setting, a supply‐capacity constraint, and the on‐line charged inventory‐holding cost. We also evaluate and compare the performances of the optimal inventory‐commitment policy and the inventory‐rationing policy. Finally, to further investigate the benefits and pitfalls of introducing an alternative lead‐time choice, we use the customer‐choice model to study the demand gains and losses, known as demand‐induction and demand‐cannibalization effects, respectively.     

捆绑策略对于低性能产品引入的价值

如何将低性能产品(低吸引力产品)引入现有高性能产品进行销售已成为企业关注的重要问题,尤其是当低性能产品具有各种边际成本结构以及顾客表现为在更长时间域理性选择购买时机的行为时.研究了捆绑策略对于低性能产品引入的价值,考虑了不引入低性能产品(只销售高性能产品)的基准策略以及引入低性能产品(同时销售两种产品)的完全捆绑策略、分开销售策略与混合捆绑策略.结论显示:当低性能产品的边际成本较低以及与高性能产品之间的竞食性较强时,不引入低性能产品对企业更有利.当低性能产品具有中等(较低)边际成本且与高性能产品之间的竞食性较弱时,企业应当采用混合捆绑策略引入低性能产品.此外,还分析了完全捆绑策略与分开销售策略的适用范围.     

Economic and Environmental Assessment of Remanufacturing Strategies for Product + Service Firms

This article provides a data‐driven assessment of economic and environmental aspects of remanufacturing for product + service firms. A critical component of such an assessment is the issue of demand cannibalization. We therefore present an analytical model and a behavioral study which together incorporate demand cannibalization from multiple customer segments across the firm's product line. We then perform a series of numerical simulations with realistic problem parameters obtained from both the literature and discussions with industry executives. Our findings show that remanufacturing frequently aligns firms' economic and environmental goals by increasing profits and decreasing the total environmental impact. We show that in some cases, an introduction of a remanufactured product leads to no changes in the new products' prices (positioning within the product line), implying a positive demand cannibalization and a decrease in the environmental impact; this provides support for a heuristic approach commonly used in practice. Yet in other cases, the firm can increase profits by decreasing the new product's prices and increasing sales—a negative effective cannibalization. With negative cannibalization the firm's total environmental impact often increases due to the growth in new production. However, we illustrate that this growth is nearly always sustainable, as the relative environmental impacts per unit and per dollar rarely increase.     

汉语双音节词拆用的认知研究

词的拆用将语素临时当作词来使用,是语言表达的有效机制之一。构词语素在意义上的独立性是其产生的物质基础,拆用式对原式的正偏离满足了语义表达的现实需要,并列式复合词的构词语素由于语法和语义上的相对独立性因而最容易发生拆用现象。     

Consumer spending in the gaming industry: evidence of complementary demand in casino and online venues

Brick and mortar gambling stakeholders have scrutinized Internet gambling sites over concern that online operators may serve as substitutes for their products. In some cases, this has led to regulatory protection to prevent or restrict entry by online providers. However, many industry observers have remarked that the two gambling modalities may serve different consumers/consumer needs, or even serve as complementary goods. Policymakers, who look to gambling as an important source of tax revenue, must determine how expansion of Internet gambling will affect overall economic welfare. Using self-reported consumer gambling behaviour data from the United Kingdom, the net effect of Internet-based gambling activity on land-based demand is estimated in this study. A robust complementary (positive) relationship between online and offline gambling is found, using ordinary least squares, two-stage least squares, and two-part modeling techniques. These particular findings suggest that economic concerns around the cannibalization of traditional gambling industries should be reconsidered, and provide support for prior research showing that Internet based firms can be complementary to brick and mortar businesses.     

词的否定格式拆用

词的拆用是语言表达的一种常用手段和方法,其中否定格式的拆用主要有"无X无Y"、"不X不Y"、"没X没Y"和"非X非Y"四种形式,通过从构成、语义、句法、语用以及来源等角度全方位立体地考察,说明否定拆用格式是语言单位拆用和组合两种机制的结合,具有积极的修辞效果。     

Revenue and Cost Management for Remanufactured Products

This paper considers pricing and remanufacturing strategy of a firm that decides to offer both new and remanufactured versions of its product in the market and is concerned with demand cannibalization. We present a model of demand cannibalization and a behavioral study that estimates a key modeling parameter: a fraction of consumers who switch from new to remanufactured product. As we show, this fraction has an inverted‐U shape, and, thus, the underlying consumer behavior cannot be modeled using the standard methodologies that rely on consumers' willingness to pay (WTP). We find that by incorporating the inverted‐U‐shaped consumer behavior, the firm remanufactures under broader conditions, charges a much lower price, and typically remanufactures more units—leading to an increase of profits from remanufacturing by up to a factor of two as compared with making decisions based on the WTP only. Lastly, we find that the behavior of the low‐price market segment plays an important role because the firm reacts to it differently than the WTP‐based logic would suggest.