On offering economic incentives to backorder

We study a strategy to manage demands that occur when an inventory system is temporarily out of stock: offer the customer facing the unsatisfied demand an economic incentive to backorder. We explore the benefits of this inventory management strategy by analyzing a model of an inventory system with stochastic demand and random supply disruptions, where the probability that a customer facing an unfilled demand will backorder (as opposed to becoming a lost sale) can be influenced by an economic incentive. Our results provide several insights regarding this inventory management strategy and suggest that the benefits of offering backorder incentives can be significant.     

Extended contractual incentives to reduce project cost

Summary Extended incentive contracts allow the contractor to select target cost at his own discretion. Two suitably devised design functions ensure that the assessment of excessive target cost automatically reduces both target profit and possible gains from cost underruns. It is shown that extended incentive contracts stimulating risk neutral contractors to reveal their cost expectation truthfully induce risk averse contractors to assess the target cost far higher than expected cost.Dedicated to F. Ferschl on the occasion of his 60th birthday     

面向市场竞争的优势设计

简述了一种面向市场竞争的设计－优势设计的重要性，特点和基本内容，重点说明了直接创造竞争优势的功能原理设计的求解方法，并用5个工程实例加以说明。文中也叙述了KnowHow设计、降低成本设计及在激烈市场竞争中的企业策略方面的一些问题。     

Risk–incentives trade-off and outside options

Despite the prominence of the risk–incentives trade-off in the agency theory, empirical evidence provides at best a mixed result. In this paper, we argue that these mixed results may be attributed to the heterogeneity of risk aversion magnitude among the agents and the outside options available on the market. We show that when an increase in the uncertainty amplifies the riskiness of principal’s internal project more than the agent’s outside option, a positive risk–incentives relationship can be predicted when the internal project is sufficiently risky. On the other hand, when an uncertainty increase amplifies the riskiness of outside option more than the internal project, this positive risk–incentives relationship occurs if the internal project is of limited risk. These results hold irrespective of whether the agent’s risk aversion magnitude is publicly observable or privately known. Our analysis leads to a more fine-tuned empirical validation of agency theory and some testable hypotheses on the interactions between internal and external uncertainties.     

供应链库存管理的几项措施

供应链库存管理与某一部门的管理有极大的不同，它涉及到各部门，各企业之间存在着的错综复杂的工序关系和不确定性。     

Bayesian Approach to Inventory Control of New Parts

The specific real world problem of concern is the inventory control of repair parts for new weapon systems. The initial forecast of demand is based on engineering estimates. This forecast is updated as demand experience accrues. An algorithm implementing a dynamic programming formulation is developed and used as a research tool to obtain insights into how the opportunity to improve the demand forecast impacts the optimum inventory control parameters.     

第六讲:标准化与竞争--市场经济活力之源

一、竞争1.竞争是市场经济的基本特征市场经济是以市场机制为基础,以自动实现资源配置为主的经济形式。市场机制是指市场的形成、结构的变化以及各构成要素相互作用表现出来的规律性。市场的功能是通过市场机制表现并实现的。市场机制,一般表现为买者和卖者之间的竞争、买者之间的竞争和卖者之间的竞争,这种竞争是通过商品交换行为而表现的。因此可以说市场机制的本质就是竞争,市场经济是竞争经济。经济领域的竞争通常叫市场竞争,它是指具有相对独立经济利益的经济主体,为增进自身利益,在市场活动中为争取更好的产销条件,而进行的比效率、比…     

Contradicting incentives for research collaboration

This study describes the Danish publication award system (BFI), investigates whether its built-in incentives have had an effect on publication behavior at the University of Southern Denmark, and discusses the possible future implications on researcher incentives should universities wish to measure BFI on the individual level. We analyzed publication data from the university CRIS system (Pure) and from SciVal. Several studies indicate that co-authored scholarly journal articles attract more citations than single author articles. The reason for this are not clear, however, research collaboration across institutions and countries is commonly accepted in the research community and among university managements as one way of increasing the researcher’s and institution’s reputation and impact. The BFI system is designed to award scholarly publication activity at Danish universities, especially publication in international journals of high status. However, we find that the built-in incentives leave the researcher and his or her institution with a dilemma: If the researchers optimize their performance by forming author groups with external collaborators, the optimal way of doing so for the researchers is not the optimal way seen from the perspective of the university. Our analysis shows that the typical article has 6.5 authors, two of which are internal, and that this has remained stable since the introduction of the BFI. However, there is variation across the disciplines. While ‘the Arts and Humanities’ and ‘the Social Sciences’ seem to compose author groups in a way which does not optimize the performance of the institution, both ‘Health’ and ‘the Natural Sciences’ seem to optimize according to criteria other than those specified in the BFI.     

基于库存销售比的VMI补货策略

在信任与合作的前提下,销售商提供库存与销售信息,供应商通过库存销售比(存销比)确定补货时间和补货量进行补货.这种补货策略通过信息共享与无订单补货,达到消除供应链中牛鞭效应的目的.     

Some incentives and contraints of scientific performance in economics

Spangenberg, et al. have tested hypotheses concerning' facilitators and inhibitors of scientific performance in Dutch economics. In order to examine the external validity of the findings, a comparison is made with large scale empirical studies conducted in two other countries. In order to examine the convergent validity of the overall performance measure, the relationship with other scientometric indicators is inspected. In order to test the robustness of their univariate and multivariate tests, multiple regressions were performed on three criteria: scientific productivity, citation impact, and individual performance index.     

Inventory Management Standardization and Its Application

With the continuous acceleration ofglobal material movement,logistics has becomethe main artery and one of the key industries in thedomestic economy.Its evolution has become a sig-nificant indicator of the country’s modernization andeconomic development efficiency.Inventory man-agement,a vital business unit for most produc-tion-oriented enterprises and service enterprisesproviding logistics,has become an important evalu-ation indicator of logistics management.In the com-petitive market,excellent inventory management ofenterprises is of great significance.In the advent ofnetworking and the emergence of the informationera have forced higher requirements in inventorymanagement.The efficiency and systematic opera-tion of inventory management must be based onstandardization and must utilize advanced scientificand technological measures to achieve greater effi-ciency with lower costs and higher revenue.     

The Inverse Inventory Problem

The classical stochastic inventory problem yields a solution for the optimum amount to stock for a given demand distribution. In the inverse inventory problem the amount stocked is given and the decision maker must determine the optimum value of the parameter of the demand distribution that is under his/her control. The relationship between the solutions of the two problems is explored.     

Evaluating top faculty researchers and the incentives that motivate them

We survey tenure-track faculty members employed in three fields in colleges of agriculture at land-grant universities—agricultural economics, agronomy, and food science—to evaluate the effects of different employment structures and incentives on research productivity. These evaluations include conducting statistical tests to assess any effects of different academic appointments and developing a regression model to measure the effects of these and other attributes on individual research productivity, as defined by the number of publications in the Thomson ISI Web of Science. We find faculty who hold larger teaching and extension appointments produce fewer publications; we also find positive effects on the number of publications for grants and university funding, multi-institutional research collaboration, and number of graduate students advised.     

供应链上的不确定因素与库存

的生产系统中有大量不必要的库存，这些库存存在很大程度上是由于供应链上的不确定因素造成的。供应链管理通过对代价 给与需求信息的集成使库存的结构发生了变化，同时也改变了生产管理水平与库存水平的相互关系。     

Financial incentives for ambulatory care performance improvement.

BACKGROUND: Measuring and improving the quality of care while curtailing costs are essential objectives in capitated care. As patient care moves from the hospital to outpatient settings, quality management resources must be shifted to ambulatory care process improvement. The Quality Improvement and Efficiency Financial Incentives Program at Stanford University Medical Center was adopted to increase quality improvement efforts and contain costs. THE INCENTIVE PROGRAM: Each department's budget for care of capitated patients was reduced by 5% from the previous year. Return of a reserve fund (10% of payments for specialty care) required completion of substantive quality improvement projects and containing costs. Successful departments were also eligible for bonus funds. Implementation strategies included endorsement by clinical leaders, physician education, use of administrative data to identify project topics and support measurement of quality and cost variables, project templates and time lines, and the availability of clinical quality managers with special expertise in clinical process improvement. RESULTS: Eight of 13 clinical departments developed and implemented 19 ambulatory quality improvement projects to varying degrees. Success in the program was roughly correlated with the potential impact of the incentive on revenues and the status of the lead person selected by the department to spearhead their efforts. Only 5 departments achieved their cost containment goals. DISCUSSION: Financial incentives are one method of encouraging physicians to use clinical process improvement methods. Endorsement by clinical leaders and selection of realistic beginning projects enhance chances for success. The capitated population has attributes that make it an attractive focus for initial quality improvement efforts.     

Dynamic pricing for remanufacturing within socially environmental incentives

We study a dual-product dynamic pricing problem for a remanufacturing system in which a manufacturer makes new and remanufactured products competing for a certain market share. The socially environmental incentives, consisting of consumers' environmentally conscious demand and governments' subsidy on remanufactured products, are considered in this study, which encourage the manufacturer to exert production effort toward environmentally friendly remanufacturing. Three models, namely, two-period, multi-period, and infinite-period scenarios, are formulated to investigate the dynamic pricing problem. Analytical results show that the government's subsidy policies, which provide subsidies to consumers or firms, have equivalent effects for the manufacturer in terms of production and profit. Consumers' environmental consciousness and government subsidy are effective incentives to induce the manufacturer to make more remanufactured products. Some threshold policies are proposed to provide decision supports for manufacturers to formulate pricing and production strategies. By comparing the pricing and production strategies of the three models, we find it interesting that the pricing and production strategies of the multi-period model can be ideally characterised by those of the two-period and infinite-period models. This managerial concept is valuable for manufacturers in formulating pricing and production strategies when the precise production planning horizon is unknown.