Bin Dan

Network-integrated manufacturing system

In this study, systematic integration for networked manufacturing, including information integration, process integration, knowledge integration and organisation integration, is presented. Then, a model of network-integrated manufacturing system (NIMS) is proposed. A wheel of network-integrated manufacturing system (NIMS) details the concept, which includes five integrated rings: the rings of core objects, participants, support centres, functional subsystems and infrastructure. A NIMS model of a Chinese ceramic company (CP-NIMS) is presented to illustrate how the model can be applied to ceramic product design, customisation, production, and delivery.

Supply chain coordination with information sharing: The informational advantage of GPOs

This paper explores the potential of group purchasing organizations (GPOs) in facilitating information sharing and coordinating horizontal competition. We consider a supply chain composed of one GPO and two manufacturers competing in quantity. The GPO sources and prices a common component for the manufacturers. Each manufacturer has some private information about the uncertain demand, and can choose a part to share with the GPO. Through benchmark analysis, we identify the manufacturers’ horizontal competition and information incompletion as two determinants of supply chain inefficiency under individual purchasing. Then, we investigate the impacts of the GPO on the supply chain with wholesale price contracts and show that double marginalization induced by the GPO is another determinant of inefficiency. For this, both manufacturers have no incentive to share information and group purchasing damages the supply chain. We also show that under group purchasing, information sharing partially from the lower-precision manufacturer rather than both can benefit the supply chain. Next, we present a forecast-sharing-based compensation contracting scheme, under which, the GPO can make perfect supply chain coordination in both quantities and information sharing, and all members in the supply chain can reach win–win results. Finally, we illustrate the GPOs informational advantage by numerical examples.

Price and Service Competition in the Supply Chain with both Pure Play Internet and Strong Bricks-and-Mortar Retailers

In the traditional retail industry, some supermarket chains and department stores have been maintaining strongpositions as the market comes to maturity. They can make use of the strong positions to squeeze their suppliers andobtain extra earnings. This situation may be challenged by the rapid development of e-commerce. Consumers’purchase habits have been changing and many manufacturers are starting to sell goods through electronic retailers, inaddition to their traditional distribution channels. This paper analyzes price and service competition in the dualchannelsupply chain with both pure play Internet and strong bricks-and mortar retailers, investigates the influence ofretailer power and proposes some competitive strategies for traditional retailer under e-commerce environment. Thedemand model is proposed based on consumer utility theory, and Stackelberg theory is used to analyze the gameprocess in which the manufacturer is the leader and the two retailers, acting simultaneously, are the followers. Theequilibrium price and service decisions of the supply chain members are reached. The analysis of the competitivestrategy is divided into two parts. Firstly, the influence of the retailer power on members of the supply chain isexamined. We find that although the traditional retailer can use its power to depress the wholesale price, this strategycannot help the traditional retailer increase its profit. Secondly, other competitive strategies of the traditional retailerare analyzed and the traditional retailer is found to be able to improve its operating status through adjusting prices andservices via specific actions.

Ordering and pricing model of retailers preventive transshipment dominated by manufacturer with conditional return

We develop a model of retailers preventive transshipment with conditional return.The preventive transshipment policy is a dominant strategy.The existence and uniqueness of ordering Nash equilibrium is proved.The return rate weakens the pricing power of the manufacturer.The transshipment price and wholesale price act as a tool to adjust the ordering quantity of the retailer. Retailers often fail to implement the transshipment policy due to lack of the trust or information asymmetry among them in the process of transshipment, especially in the case that return becomes a norm. Therefore, we develop a framework about the preventive transshipment which is dominated by the manufacturer between two independent retailers to cope with the mismatch between demand and inventory. In this research, a two-period ordering and pricing model about the preventive transshipment with conditional return is formulated. To simplify the implementation of preventive transshipment, a dominant preventive transshipment policy is recommended at the beginning of the second period. So, one retailer may adjust the inventory without considering the impact of the other retailers inventory quantity and the transshipment strategy. To analyze the mutual effect between two retailers, the existence and uniqueness of the ordering Nash Equilibrium and the optimal pricing policy is identified and analyzed. Furthermore, we obtain the relationship between the ordering quantity and transshipment price. Finally, a numerical analysis is carried out to examine the sensitivity of the transshipment price, wholesale price, ordering quantity, profit of the retailer and manufacture to the return rate.

Outsourcing logistics channel coordination with logistics service levels dependent market demand

The purpose of this paper is to resolve the coordination problems of an outsourcing logistics channel constituted by a Third Party Logistics Service Provider (TPLSP) and a client. High levels of logistics service that the TPLSP provides have a significant impact on customer demand for the clients products. When customer demand is not influenced by levels of logistics service, a properly designed revenue-sharing contract can achieve channel coordination and a win-win outcome. When customer demand is influenced by levels of logistics service, a properly designed combination contract with revenue-sharing and service-cost-sharing can achieve channel coordination and a win-win outcome. Under a revenue-sharing contract and a combination contract with revenue-sharing and service-cost-sharing, the TPLSP needs to undertake some inventory risk.

Joint Optimal Pricing and Ordering Decisions for Seasonal Products with Weather-Sensitive Demand

Retailers selling seasonal products often face the challenge in matching their inventory levels with uncertain market demand which is sensitive to weather conditions, such as the average seasonal temperature. Therefore, how to make the joint ordering and pricing decisions may help retailers to increase their profits. In this paper, we address the joint determination of pricing and ordering decisions in a newsvendor setting, where a retailer (newsvendor) sells the seasonal products and faces demand risk due to weather uncertainty. We show that the maximum expected profit function is continuous and concave, so the optimal solution to the retail price and order quantity exists and it is the one and only solution. In addition, we numerically investigate the impacts of related parameters on the retailer’s expected profit and the optimal pricing and ordering decisions and illustrate some useful management insights into the economic behavior of firms.

Strategies for warranty service in a dual-channel supply chain with value-added service competition

This paper studies a dual-channel supply chain composed of a manufacturer and a retailer. The manufacturer and the retailer sell homogeneous durable goods bundled with warranty service that is provided by the manufacturer, and they compete for customers by offering free value-added service. Both the warranty and value-added services can affect the purchasing behaviour of customers. We examine the warranty service decision of the manufacturer and the value-added service competition between the manufacturer and the retailer. Three types of warranty service strategies that can affect the value-added service competition are proposed. By analysing the equilibriums of the value-added service level decisions of the manufacturer and the retailer, we find that when the manufacturer increases its warranty service level, the value-added service competition will be weakened, and when the warranty service level is high enough, there is no value-added service competition. In addition, we examine the optimal warranty service strategy and warranty service level of the manufacturer under different conditions, and we find that the stronger the manufacturer’s bargaining power is, or the stronger the value-added service competition intensity is, the more motivation the manufacturer has to provide a high warranty service level. Numerical examples reveal that differentiation strategy in value-added service may hurt the profits of the manufacturer, the retailer and the entire supply chain.

Supply chain coordination under information asymmetry considering customer's service free-riding behavior

We focus on a coordinating issue in the presence of service free-riding in a dual-channel supply chain consisting of a manufacturer and a traditional retailer. We incorporate information asymmetry into the model where the manufacturer has incomplete information about the retailers cost of providing service, and present an analytical framework and obtain equilibrium decisions in a centralized scenario and a decentralized scenario, respectively. Then we propose a bidirectional revenue sharing mechanism (BRS mechanism) to coordinate the decentralized supply chain. We find that the supply chain with the BRS mechanism can achieve system optimization. Besides, the free-riding behavior can be reduced after the coordination is achieved. We also find that the coordination is not affected by the information asymmetry. However, the bargaining power and the information asymmetry jointly make impacts on the split of the system profit. The results can provide some managerial guidance for firms in practice.

An efficient adaptive scaling parameter for the spectral conjugate gradient method

This paper deals with the choice of the scaling parameter in the spectral conjugate gradient (SCG) method proposed by Birgin and Martínez (in Appl Math Optim 43:117–128, 2001). Theoretical analyses show that the scaling parameter selection not only influences the numerical stability, but also plays an important role in ensuring the descent property of the SCG method. Based on these analyses, an adaptive scaling parameter is proposed to overcome the drawback of the original choice. Global convergence of the SCG method with our new parameter is established for both convex and nonconvex objective functions. Numerical results on CUTEr problems indicate that the proposed scaling parameter is very efficient and promising.

Analysis of Strong Retailer’s Competitive Strategies in Dual-Channel Supply Chain with Service Considered

This paper analyzes the competitive strategies of strong traditional retailer in a dual-channel supply chain consisting of a manufacturer, a strong traditional retailer and an electronic retailer. A Stackelberg model is built with the manufacturer as the leader and the two retailers as the followers. The results indicate that it is not an effective competitive strategy for the traditional retailer to depress wholesale price, the traditional retailer can improve its operating status through selling higher-value products and adjusting price and service via specific actions.