Manufacturer warranty service outsourcing strategies in a dual‐channel supply chain

Warranty management for durable products has received increasing attention in recent years. In addition to conventionally keeping warranty in‐house, more manufacturers choose to outsource warranty service to agents. This paper explores outsourcing strategies for manufacturer warranty services in a dual‐channel supply chain by which the demand‐enhancing service can be undertaken by different supply chain parties. We show the results of three alternative outsourcing strategies for manufacturers whereby (a) the retailer undertakes the service, (b) a third party undertakes the service, and (c) both the retailer and a third party undertake the service simultaneously. According to Stackelberg game theory, we build a two‐echelon supply chain model and discuss the corresponding expressions for supply chain members' equilibrium decisions. Additionally, we compare the profits of each supply chain member and derive interesting managerial insights. When the base market size is relatively large, Scenario R helps the manufacturer and the retailer reach a “win‐win” situation.     

基于链链竞争的闭环供应链渠道结构选择策略

研究当零售商之间存在价格竞争时,两条竞争闭环供应链的渠道结构选择问题。结果表明：从供应链系统总利润角度出发,当两条链之间竞争强度较小时,中心化渠道结构占优;反之,分散化渠道结构占优。从消费者与环境的角度出发,无论两链之间竞争强度为何值,两条链同时选择中心化渠道结构时最有利。     

Financing strategies for a capital‐constrained manufacturer in a dual‐channel supply chain

This study investigates a co‐opetition‐type dual‐channel supply chain that consists of a competitive supplier (CS) and a capital‐constrained manufacturer (CCM). The CCM procures key components from and simultaneously competes with the CS in the consumer market. To address the CCM's capital constraint, we consider three financing strategies, namely, trade credit, bank loan, and hybrid financing (i.e., combined use of bank loan and equity financing). Game models are established to characterize the interactions between the CS and CCM. The corresponding equilibria are derived under each strategy. Then, comparative analyses are conducted, and the CS's and CCM's preference structures regarding the three strategies are revealed. On this basis, the equilibrium strategy can be concluded as either trade credit or hybrid financing, but never bank loan. Specifically, when the equity financing ratio is small or large, trade credit is an equilibrium strategy. When the equity financing ratio is medium, the equilibrium strategy between trade credit and hybrid financing is determined by consumers’ product preference and loan interest rate.     

The impact of consumer behavior on preannounced pricing for a dual‐channel supply chain

This study discusses a dual‐channel supply chain in which a manufacturer sells a regular‐priced product through dual channels in the normal sales period and only sells overstocked products through the direct channel in the discounted sales period in the presence of strategic consumers. The manufacturer acts as a Stackelberg leader to adopt a preannounced pricing policy. This study first proposes demand functions for a two‐period dual‐channel model by incorporating consumer utility functions. Based on the demand functions, optimal pricing strategies for both manufacturer and retailer are established. The results show that the manufacturer prefers to raise prices in both periods for consumers with a short delivery lead time. However, counterintuitively, the selling prices set by the manufacturer do not decrease as the degree of consumer patience increases. Finally, there is a Pareto zone under a certain condition where both the manufacturer and the retailer in the two‐period dual‐channel model outperform their counterparts in terms of profit in the single‐period dual‐channel model.     

Proposing channel coordination and horizontal cooperation in two competitive three‐echelon reverse supply chains

Considering and analyzing various kinds of cooperation among supply chain members is an option for better managing each channel. It is noteworthy that in many real‐world cases, each of vertical and horizontal cooperation has an important role in the success of supply chains. Nevertheless, only vertical cooperation in most previous research is considered. This paper addresses both vertical and horizontal cooperation in two competitive reverse supply chains, each of which includes one collector, one remanufacturer, and one retailer. Our primary concern is to analyze quality improvement competition between the remanufacturers. Moreover, retail price competition between the retailers and the quality competition are simultaneously considered in the extended model. In this research, the investigated system has been analyzed under different structures including decentralized, centralized, horizontal cooperation, and coordinated decision‐making models. The results show that when the remanufacturers cooperate horizontally, the profit of each collector and that of the retailer will decrease compared with those in the decentralized structure. To overcome this problem, a new coordination contract named multiple‐link two‐part tariff is proposed to simultaneously coordinate the members of each chain. The proposed contract effectively convinces the remanufacturers to participate in the coordination model instead of the horizontal cooperation. Moreover, it provides a win–win–win condition for all chain members and improves the quality level of the remanufactured products. The results indicate the proper performance of the proposed contract in improving the benefits of the competing chains, especially when there exists no intense competition between the remanufacturers (i.e., when the market sensitivity to the quality of the remanufactured products is low and consequently less effort is needed to increase the quality of the remanufactured products). Moreover, the proposed contract not only is able to simultaneously increase both remanufactured products demand and of end‐of‐life products supply but also involves both economic and environmental benefits.     

Pricing,manufacturing and inventory policies for raw material in a three-level supply chain

We studied a decentralised three-layer supply chain including a supplier, a producer and some retailers. All the retailers order their demands to the producer and the producer order his demands to the supplier. We assumed that the demand is price sensitive and shortage is not permitted. The goal of the paper is to optimise the total cost of the supply chain network by coordinating decision-making policy using Stackelberg–Nash equilibrium. The decision variables of our model are the supplier's price, the producer's price and the number of shipments received by the supplier and producer, respectively. To illustrate the applicability of the proposed model numerical examples are presented.     

Return and refund policy for product and core service bundling in the dual‐channel supply chain

Recently, manufacturers have increasingly begun to sell products bundled with core services. However, customers are inconvenienced by individually returning the product or refunding the service after they have purchased a bundle. This paper presents a return and refund policy under two‐stage demand uncertainty (uncertainty at time 0 and inherent uncertainty), for products bundled with core services in the dual‐channel supply chain. Consumers can use the direct channel to return the default product–service bundle. In contrast, consumers in the retail channel can unsubscribe from the retailer's diverse core service by first receiving an unused service refund; the retailer then returns the product to the manufacturer. We use an approximate algorithm to solve for the optimal product quantity in the retail channel, demonstrating that the proportional marginal profit has a greater positive influence on the retailer's profit, and especially for the demand with a higher mean and lower variance.     

A two-level replenishment frequency model for TOC supply chain replenishment systems under capacity constraint

Good production planning and replenishment management are important for a firm to keep competitive in the market. The theory of constraints-supply chain replenishment system (TOC-SCRS) is a replenishment method under the TOC philosophy. In the application of the TOC-SCRS in a node of a supply chain, the replenishment frequency (RF) and the reliable replenishment time (RRT) are required parameters. Generally, the RF of a node depends on the public transportation schedule such as ship schedules or its private conveyor schedule. If this node is a plant, however, the RF depends on the setup frequency in this plant, and a higher RF (i.e., once a day) is preferred by the TOC because of lower inventory and quick response to different market requirement. Basically, the RF in a plant is determined by its sales or production quantity. When sales increase significantly, the RF in a plant requires to be elongated from higher frequency (i.e., once a day) to lower frequency (i.e., once every two or more days) due to the limited capacity. Therefore, a two-level replenishment frequency model for the TOC-SCRS under capacity constraint is proposed. This model is especially suitable to a plant in which different products have a large sales volume variation. Numerical examples are utilized to evaluate the application of the proposed method. Employing this proposed methodology will facilitate a plant or a central warehouse to implement an effective TOC-SCRS successfully.     

Reconfiguration framework of a supply network based on flexibility strategies

Because the supply network of an enterprise should be flexible enough to capture and overcome market dynamics, one of the major concerns of global enterprises is to make their supply network reconfigurable. Although many strategies for flexible management of a supply network have been proposed, especially for mitigating supply network risks, it still remains unclear how to apply the strategies to a supply network and how to reconfigure the supply network. This paper examines the influence of flexibility strategies in a dynamic global market environment on the structure of supply network, and proposes a method of reconfiguring the supply network of an enterprise to cope with its flexibility strategies. A reconfigurable supply network model is proposed, and flexibility strategies are classified, and critical indices of strategies are defined. In the proposed model, each business actor is defined as a network node and each node has its own goal. A node optimizes its goal to reduce and overcome the risk of market environments. The result of optimization indicates that the supply network structure is reconfigured dynamically.     

过程工业供应链流结构及其管理研究

与离散制造业相比,过程工业具有大批量、连续性、高能耗等特点,根据过程工业的自身特点和复杂性,本文提出了过程工业供应链的概念,分别建立了组成该复杂供应链的物质流、能量流、信息流、资金流、工件流和人件流六大流的动态结构,并以此为基础,通过分析国内外过程工业供应链管理的研究和应用现状,建立了针对复杂过程系统的综合集成的过程工业供应链管理框架。     

A cooperation model based on CVaR measure for a two-stage supply chain

In this paper, we introduce a cooperation model (CM) for the two-stage supply chain consisting of a manufacturer and a retailer. In this model, it is supposed that the objective of the manufacturer is to maximise his/her profit while the objective of the retailer is to minimise his/her CVaR while controlling the risk originating from fluctuation in market demand. In reality, the manufacturer and the retailer would like to choose their own decisions as to wholesale price and order quantity to optimise their own objectives, resulting the fact that the expected decision of the manufacturer and that of the retailer may conflict with each other. Then, to achieve cooperation, the manufacturer and the retailer both need to give some concessions. The proposed model aims to coordinate the decisions of the manufacturer and the retailer, and balance the concessions of the two in their cooperation. We introduce an s* ? optimal equilibrium solution in this model, which can decide the minimum concession that the manufacturer and the retailer need to give for their cooperation, and prove that the s* ? optimal equilibrium solution can be obtained by solving a goal programming problem. Further, the case of different concessions made by the manufacturer and the retailer is also discussed. Numerical results show that the CM is efficient in dealing with the cooperations between the supplier and the retailer.     

Cooperative advertising in a capacitated manufacturer–retailer supply chain: a game‐theoretic approach

To achieve a more realistic understanding of how the supply chain's components interact, it is helpful to consider the operational limitations of the underlying supply chain while analyzing cooperative advertising. This paper studies cooperative advertising in a manufacturer–retailer supply chain under the practical operational assumption that the manufacturer's production capacity is limited. The retailer advertises locally, and the manufacturer advertises in national media and supports part of the retailer's promotional costs. Equilibria are determined under two different scenarios. In the first scenario, both retailer and manufacturer move simultaneously, while in the second scenario, they move sequentially, with the manufacturer being the leader. The sales function is a bivariate version of the diminishing returns response function. When the production capacity is unlimited, several important properties can be proven, which cannot be shown analytically for the existing sales functions. Considering the production‐capacity constraint leads to new managerial insights into cooperative advertising. For example, only if the production capacity is large enough, both manufacturer and retailer are better off under the second scenario than the first scenario. In other words, the sequential move is not necessarily Pareto‐improving when the production capacity is limited. It is also observed that, under the first scenario, there are multiple equilibria whenever the production capacity is not too high. Under the second scenario, the manufacturer supports the retailer only when the retailer's margin is relatively small compared to the manufacturer's margin and production capacity.     

Financing decisions in supply chains with a capital‐constrained manufacturer: competition and risk

Supply chain finance is a crucial topic. In this paper, we consider that a capital‐constrained manufacturer can borrow money from either a bank (bank credit financing) or a retailer (trade credit financing). Our analysis compares supply chain performance under these two financing schemes. Furthermore, we extend our model to evaluate the impacts of retail competition and supply chain member's risk aversion on supply chains, which consist of one capital‐constrained manufacturer and two competing retailers. We consider three financing schemes: only bank credit financing, dual trade credit financing, and bank and trade credit mix financing. We find that without retail competition, the retailer is always willing to use the trade credit financing; whereas with retail competition, if one retailer provides the trade credit but the other does not, the credit provider could receive the superior profit. Thus, providing an appropriate trade credit financing scheme is critically important for retailers. Moreover, we find that without retail competition, when a trade interest rate is relatively low, both the retailer and manufacturer could reach a win‐win situation in the trade credit financing. However, with retail competition, supply chain members (i.e., two retailers and one manufacturer) will not have an all‐win situation no matter which specific financing scheme is adopted and only a win‐win‐lose situation exists when using the credit mix financing scheme or the dual trade credit financing in supply chains. Last but not least, regardless of risk neutrality or aversion of supply chain members, their pricing decisions among three financing schemes are similar. This implies that the impacts of supply chain members’ risk aversion are limited in supply chain financing scheme selection. More managerial insights are discussed.     

Coordination in a retailer‐dominated supply chain with a risk‐averse manufacturer under marketing dependency

In this paper, a combined contract composed of option and cost sharing is proposed to investigate coordination and risk‐sharing issues of the supply chain consisting of a dominant retailer and a risk‐averse manufacturer. Demand faced by the retailer is stochastic in nature and dependent on marketing effort. We adopt the conditional value‐at‐risk (CVaR) criterion to model risk aversion of the manufacturer, and derive the optimal strategy for each member with a Stackelberg game in which the retailer acts as the leader. It is verified that the combined contract can coordinate the supply chain and achieve Pareto‐improvement. Moreover, the dominant retailer can allocate the system‐wide profit arbitrarily only by option price in the premise of coordination. It is worth mentioning that coordination of the supply chain is reachable only when the manufacturer is low in risk aversion, and the manufacturer's risk aversion is a significant element for contract design and profit allocation.     

A simulation‐based algorithm for optimal pricing policy under demand uncertainty

We propose a simulation‐based algorithm for computing the optimal pricing policy for a product under uncertain demand dynamics. We consider a parameterized stochastic differential equation (SDE) model for the uncertain demand dynamics of the product over the planning horizon. In particular, we consider a dynamic model that is an extension of the Bass model. The performance of our algorithm is compared to that of a myopic pricing policy and is shown to give better results. Two significant advantages with our algorithm are as follows: (a) it does not require information on the system model parameters if the SDE system state is known via either a simulation device or real data, and (b) as it works efficiently even for high‐dimensional parameters, it uses the efficient smoothed functional gradient estimator.     

Peer‐to‐peer financing choice of SME entrepreneurs in the re‐emergence of supply chain localization

While peer‐to‐peer (P2P) financing mechanisms have recently gained significant popularity, small and medium sized enterprise (SME) entrepreneurs still harbor a considerable degree of skepticism about the role of governments in promoting alternative supply chain finance (SCF) solutions in the re‐emergence of supply chain (SC) localization. This paper studies the SC financing problem of a capital‐constrained SME entrepreneur under two alternative financing schemes provided by an online P2P lending‐investment platform, namely debt financing (DF) and equity financing (EF). Considering the competition between a local and a foreign SC in a shared market, we investigate the direct (i.e., subsidizing domestic production) and indirect (i.e., subsidizing P2P platform service fee) roles of government intervention toward SC localization. Formulating a three‐level Stackelberg game model, this paper presents a scenario‐based decision‐making framework to jointly evaluate four different SCF scenarios through the lens of local SC, P2P financing platforms, and government. The results reveal that there exist three possible regions (i.e., DF, EF, and Conflict), within which the government and the P2P financing platforms can examine the alternative SCF schemes in order to achieve a mutually agreeable agreement. Our sensitivity analysis on interest rate and exchange ratio suggests that, when financed via an online P2P lending platform (i.e., DF), the local SC always achieves a higher profit under the direct intervention policy. The indirect policy, however, is preferred only when EF is the main source of SCF and the exchange ratio is sufficiently high.     

Disruptions management of a supply chain under strategic subsidy policy for the demand-stimulating inventory

This paper introduces a game model of one manufacturer and one retailer with the demand depending on the amount of inventory displayed on the retailer’s shelf. We study coordination mechanisms of the supply chain with the two kinds of disruptions. To coordinate the channel as well as make a profit, the manufacturer needs to augment the wholesale price lever by another, i.e., an inventory-holding cost subsidy to the retailer. We show that the inventory-subsidy contract for disruption(s) situation has its rationality and limitation: from the perspective of feasibility analysis, we find that when the disrupted amount of inventory-holding cost is larger than a certain threshold value, both players can achieve win–win by using inventory-subsidy contract. Otherwise, it may be ineffective. For two-factor disruptions, there are some mutual restraints between the disrupted inventory-holding cost and the disrupted demand when the coordination mechanism is used. We also find that both disruption situations have their own robust scales, in which the manufacturer should not change the original production plan but at the expense of providing a more attractive subsidy scheme to the retailer. Interestingly, some counter-intuitive managerial insights can be observed in robust scales. For example, the market demand increases with the displayed inventory level in the setting of the demand-stimulating inventory. However, the higher the demand, the less displayed inventory level will be in the robust scale.     

A new forecasting scheme for evaluating long‐term prediction performances in supply chain management

Supply chain management (SCM) practitioners in inventory sites are often required to predict the future sales of products in order to meet customer demands and reduce inventory costs simultaneously. Although a variety of forecasting methods have been developed, many of them may not be used in practice for various reasons, such as insufficient viable information about sales and oversophisticated methods. In this paper, we provide a new forecasting scheme to evaluate long‐term prediction performances in SCM. Three well‐known forecasting methods for time series data—moving average (MA), autoregressive integrated MA, and smoothing spline—are considered. We also focus on two representative sales patterns, each of which is with and without a growth pattern, respectively. By applying the proposed scheme to various simulated and real datasets, this research aims to provide SCM practitioners with a general guideline for time series sales forecasting, so that they can easily understand what prediction performance measures and which forecasting method can be considered.     

A new fuzzy DEA model for evaluation of efficiency and effectiveness of suppliers in sustainable supply chain management context

Sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) has received much consideration from corporate and academic over the past decade. Sustainable supplier performance evaluation and selection plays a significant role in establishing an effective SSCM. One of the techniques that can be used for sustainable supplier performance evaluation and selection is data envelopment analysis (DEA). In real world problems, the inputs and outputs might be imprecise. This paper develops an integrated DEA enhanced Russell measure (ERM) model in fuzzy context to select the best sustainable suppliers. A case study is presented to exhibit the efficacy of the proposed method for sustainable supplier selection problem in a resin production company. The case study demonstrates that the proposed model can measure effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity in uncertain environment with different α levels. Also, it shows that the proposed model aids decision makers to deal with economic, social, and environmental factors when selecting sustainable suppliers.     

基于修正区间模糊Shapley值信息产品供应链利益分配算法

信息产品供应链参与体面临风险差异,提出区间模糊Shapley算法分配信息产品收益以实现公平性。在收益不确定的条件下构造收益模糊值,引入区间模糊Shapley值的隶属度函数,给出确定的分配方案。综合考虑各项风险因素对利益分配的影响,采用模糊层次分析法对风险因子进行修正,以确保信息产品供应链的稳定性