Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Supply Chain Pricing'

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 114-120).
Increased globalisation has lead to centralised risk management and decision-making in multinational enterprises, which gives rise to the principle of tax efficient supply chain management and the need to focus on the integration of tax considerations into the multinational's supply chain. In order to retain a competitive advantage in the global economy, multinational enterprises need to constantly search for cost benefits. This has created a market for tax motivated structures and the consequential action by tax authorities world-wide to regulate transfer pricing, in order to protect their respective tax bases. As revenue authorities increase their focus on transfer pricing compliance, it is vital that multinationals adhere to the arm's length principle and ensure their transfer pricing documentation can substantiate the transfer prices selected.

This submission for PhD by publication consists of a portfolio of nine peer reviewed and published papers. The research presented in the portfolio contributes to theory, knowledge and discussion in the area of retail marketing. The common theme of the papers is competition in grocery retailing, and specifically the way that retail marketing strategy and supply chain relations affects retail competition and outcomes for consumers. While the nine papers share a common approach in how grocery retailers compete through pricing and product choices along with their trading terms with suppliers, each individual paper addresses a distinctive central question: How does pricing competition change in the wake of a major merger in the retail grocery sector? How do grocery retailers respond in their pricing, promotion and advertising to the onset of a macro-economic crisis? Do grocery retailers encourage excessive consumption of alcohol by under-shifting excise duty increases on cheap alcohol? Why do retailers use value size pricing and offer bargain prices on jumbo-sized sugary drinks that encourages harmful excessive consumption? Is retail buyer power over suppliers detrimental to competition? In what circumstances might the development and promotion of brands and private labels be deleterious to consumers interests? How should competition authorities and practitioners assess the extent of competition between brands and private labels? How can the development of copycat private labels directly mimicking leading brands result in higher overall prices for consumers? Do retailers manipulate grocery prices to favour private labels over brands? Beyond their academic research contribution, the findings and insights provided in the papers both individually and collectively have relevance to retailers, suppliers, consumers, regulators and policymakers in desiring to see an efficient, well-functioning and dynamic grocery retail sector.

Obiettivo: fornire un modello di track and trace per prodotti deperibili lungo una cold supply chain, implementando algoritmi di dynamic pricing, al fine di ottenere una funzione dinamica di prezzo che tenga in considerazione la perdita di valore dei prodotti stessi durante il loro ciclo di vita. Il modello proposto verrà infine trattato, a livello teorico, in un contesto tecnologico estremamente attuale come quello della blockchain, un registro digitale che, grazie alle proprie caratteristiche, è in grado di fornire ottimi spunti e implicazioni pratiche al mondo della logistica e della filiera di distribuzione. Metodologia: viene presentato un modello simulativo realizzato sul software AutoMod, in cui i prodotti transitano nei nodi del sistema, nei quali vengono registrate le informazioni di temperatura, valori nutrizionali e tempo di permanenza nel sistema. I nodi del sistema sono in grado di elaborare tali informazioni e, mediante apposito algoritmo, calcolare un prezzo legato proporzionalmente alla perdita di valore. Risultati: la simulazione ha fornito una solida base di dati su cui poter lavorare ed analizzare i modelli di decadimento utilizzati. Lo studio della blockchain, degli smart contract e del progetto VeChain ha portato numerosi spunti di interesse che verranno trattati nella parte finale dell’elaborato. Implicazioni pratiche: le stringenti normative in merito alla sicurezza alimentare e la necessità di garantire ai consumatori prodotti di qualità necessitano di un robusto modello di business che garantisca trasparenza ed efficienza nelle filiere di distribuzione. Grandi aziende del settore del calibro di Walmart e IBM stanno già esplorando numerose soluzioni per l’integrazione della supply chain con le innovazioni tecnologiche dell’IoT e della blockchain. Questo elaborato vuole pertanto fornire una panoramica delle tecnologie che nei prossimi anni potrebbero rivelarsi armi vincente nei processi di supply chain management.

Thesis: M. Eng. in Logistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Supply Chain Management Program, 2016.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 62-64).
Unilever, a large multi-national Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) company, uses water as an essential ingredient in its products and as a critical component in its manufacturing processes. In many instances, the price of water does not reflect market dynamics insofar as water is cheaper where there is low availability and vice versa. Business continuity costs due to poor water quality or water shortages may far outweigh the direct costs that Unilever incurs in purchasing water. Hence, by performing a literature review, numerous interviews with experts and stakeholders and an extensive review of existing water valuation tools, we created a framework that is capable of calculating a comprehensive value of water for any of Unilever's 250+ manufacturing sites based on site-specific conditions. We identified and developed the three core components of our framework, namely: purchase price, processing and handling cost and business disruption cost. Our main contribution is the estimation of a business disruption cost that takes into consideration mitigation options available and a scenario analysis of different water-related events to yield the total value-at-risk. A risk- adjusted value of water would enable Unilever to optimize water use and build resilience within its manufacturing operations by incentivizing water efficiency and catchment-based water stewardship initiatives where they are needed most. As the evaluation of a comprehensive price of water is a complex challenge, this project is a first step towards building a more robust framework. We have listed several recommendations that would strengthen the framework.
by Rishi Gohil and María Carolina Méndndez Vives.
M. Eng. in Logistics

A company's decisions on how to manage its reverse supply chain (RSC) are important for both economic and environmental reasons. From a strategic standpoint, the key decision a manufacturer makes is whether or not to collect products at their end-of-life (EOL) (i.e., when their useful lives are over), and if so, how to recover value from the recovered products. We call this decision as the EOL option of a product, and it determines how the RSC is designed and managed overall. Many EOL options exist for a product such as resale, refurbishment, remanufacturing and part salvage. However, many factors influence the optimal EOL option. These factors include the product's: (i) characteristics, (ii) design, and (iii) pricing. A product's characteristics are its properties that impact the various costs incurred during its production, residual part values, and customer demand. In this work, the product design is viewed as the choice of quality for each of its parts. A part's quality-level determines, among other things, its cost, salvage value, and the likelihood of obtaining it in good condition from a disassembled used product. Finally, the manufacturer must determine how to price its new and used products. This decision depends on many considerations such as whether new and used products compete and whether competition exists from other manufacturers. The choice of appropriate EOL options for products constitutes a foundation of RSC design. In this work, we study how to optimally determine a product's optimal EOL option and consider the impact of product design and product pricing on this decision. We present a full description of the system that details the relationships among all entities. The system description reveals the use of a production planning type of modeling strategy. Additionally, a comprehensive and general mathematical model is presented that takes into consideration multi-period planning and product inventory. A unique aspect of our model over previous production planning models for RSC is that we consider the product returns as being endogenous variables rather than them being exogenous. This model forms the basis of our research, and we use its special cases in our analysis. To begin our analysis of the problem, we study the case in which the product design and price are fixed. Both non-mandated and mandated collection are considered. Our analysis focuses on a special case of the problem involving two stages: in the first stage, new products are produced, and in the second stage, the EOL products are collected for value recovery. For fixed product design and price, our analysis reveals a fundamental mapping of product characteristics onto optimal EOL options. It is germane to our understanding of the problem in general since a multi-period problem is separable into multiple two-stage problems. Necessary and sufficient optimality conditions are also presented for each possible solution of this two-stage problem. For the two-part problem, a graphical mapping of product characteristics onto optimal EOL options is also presented, which reveals how EOL options vary with product characteristics. Additionally, we study the case of product design under mandated collection, as encountered in product leasing. We assume new production cost, part replacement cost, and part salvage value to be functions of the quality-level of a part along with the likelihood of recovering a good-part from a returned product. These are reasonable assumptions for leased products since the customer is paying for the usage of the product over a fixed contract period. In this case, the two-stage model can still be used to gain insights. For the two-part problem, a method for mapping part yields onto optimal EOL options is presented. Closed-form optimality conditions for joint determination of part yields and EOL options are not generally attainable for the two-stage case; however, computationally efficient methods for this problem are developed for some relatively non-restrictive special cases. It is found that, typically, a part may belong to one of three major categories: (i) it is of low quality and will need to be replaced to perform remanufacturing, (ii) it is of high quality and its surplus will be salvaged, or (iii) it is of moderate quality and just enough of its amount is collected to meet remanufactured product demand. Finally, we consider the problem of determining optimal prices for new and remanufactured products under non-mandated manufacturer's choice of collection. New and remanufactured products may or may not compete, depending on market conditions. Additionally, we assume the manufacturer to have a monopoly on the product. Again, the two-stage problem is used and efficient solution methods are developed. Efficient solution methods and key insights are presented.
Ph. D.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Operations Research Center, 2003.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 109-111).
Distribution and pricing strategies play a central role in the field of supply chain management. Heuristic approaches to the vehicle routing problem (VRP) are usually used to design optimal delivery routes to serve geographically dispersed customers, who are price elastic. There is a rich literature discussing either the manufacturer's distribution strategy or its pricing initiatives. The purpose of this thesis is to develop a profit maximization model that presents an integrated distribution and pricing strategy for any company facing such issues. We first examine a simplified scenario when all customers are located in the same delivery region and their demand is deterministic. Both truckload (TL) and less-than-truckload (LTL) shipment strategies are analyzed and compared. We later extend our findings to multiple delivery regions and discuss the impact of the manufacturer's pricing flexibility on its profit. Then we relax the assumption of deterministic customer demand and introduce the safety stock cost. Finally the application on across delivery region situations is shown. Although some of our assumptions simplify our model, we believe that it provides insight into more complex supply chain management problems.
by Ye Mao.
S.M.

Bullwhip effect in Pricing (BP) refers to the amplified variability of prices in a supply chain. When the amplification takes place from the upstream (i.e. supplier’s side) towards the downstream (i.e. retail side) of a supply chain, this is referred as the Reverse Bullwhip effect in Pricing (RBP). On the other hand, if an absorption in price variability takes place from the upstream towards the downstream of a supply chain, we refer this phenomenon as the Forward Bullwhip effect in Pricing (FBP).

In this research, we analyze the occurrence of BP in the case of different game structures and supply chain contracts. We consider three game scenarios (e.g. simultaneous, wholesale-leading, and retail-leading) and two supply chain contracts (e.g. buyback and revenue-sharing). We analyze the occurrence of BP for some common demand functions (e.g. log-concave, linear, isoelastic, negative exponential, logarithmic, logit etc.). We consider some common pricing practices such as a fixed-dollar and fixed-percentage markup pricing and the optimal pricing game.

We discuss the conditions for the occurrence of BP based on the concavity coefficient and the cost-pass-through. We analyze the price variation analytically and then illustrate the results through numerical simulations. We extend the cost-pass-through analysis for a N-stage supply chain and conjecture the BP ratios for a N-stage supply chain. We compute cost-pass-through under both a buyback and a revenue-sharing contract. We compared the BP ratios between a revenue-sharing contract and a no-contract cases. We include both the deterministic and stochastic demand functions with an additive and a multiplicative uncertainty.

The results indicate that the occurrence of BP depends on the concavity coefficient of the demand functions. For example: RBP occurs for an isoelastic demand, FBP occurs for a linear demand, No BP occurs for a negative exponential demand etc. This study also shows that, FBP and RBP occur in varying magnitude for different types of games and supply chain contracts. The comparison between the stochastic model and the risk-less model shows that the additive or multiplicative uncertainty changes the price fluctuation. The comparison between contract and no-contract cases shows that the contract minimizes FBP or RBP in some cases.

This doctoral dissertation focuses on the investigation of collaborative Supply Chain Pric-ing, namely the interaction of a firm with one or more other supply chain counterparts not only in the determination of its price, being influenced by the parties involved in the col-laboration, but also in their pricing process. Traditionally, pricing has been considered as a process for dividing profit between two bargaining parties facing each other in negotia-tions, without considering the opportunity to act collaboratively in price definition in order to develop mutually beneficial relationships. Only recently, scholars started to investigate the development of new collaborative approaches which involve also the pricing process. These contributions underline a new perspective on price definition across the supply chain, as a result of the interaction between several supply chain members through the adoption of cost transparency and information sharing. However, the main research gap lies in the effective implementation of these emerging pricing approaches, since related literature largely lacks of an empirical support. From a managerial perspective pricing issues play a critical role, since there is growing in-terest for innovative pricing mechanisms aimed at obtaining not only competitive outcomes, but also supply chain sustainability. This is necessity is particularly relevant in the context of agri-food supply chains, which has been chosen to develop the empirical part of this research. The research project, which lasted three years, has been structured in four phases. In the first phase a thorough literature review allowed to develop a first overview of collaborative Supply Chain Pricing, by adopting an interdisciplinary perspective across Business Mar-keting and Supply Chain Management research areas. As a result, the main literature gaps have been highlighted: a shared definition of the Supply Chain Pricing construct; the lack of effective models to implement fully collaborative and symmetric pricing activities along the supply chain; the lack of a global network perspective to overcome the exclusively dy-adic buyer-supplier interaction in the pricing process which is mainly investigated in the literature. In the second stage of this research, aimed at exploring collaborative pricing approaches in the practice, we identified in the USA agri-food industry some interesting examples of supply chains collaborating in the pricing process: the analyzed case studies demonstrate the opportunity to perceive pricing as a tool to foster collaboration between supply chain members and develop mutually beneficial relationships. These supply chains are construct-ed on collaborative principles that feature high levels of interdependence and inter-organizational trust. On the other hand, we investigated other different supply chain con-texts, performing pilot interviews in the manufacturing and third-party logistics providers industries, in order to ascertain the opportunity of developing collaborative Supply Chain Pricing approaches: however, only traditional “adversarial” pricing approaches were re-ported. These pilot interviews allowed me to develop and validate in collaboration with Prof. Ellram the semi-structured questionnaire designed to investigate for each supply chain member involved in pricing collaboration the following elements: the internal processes adopted by the organization to define its price and the collaborative negotiations performed with upstream and downstream supply chain counterparts. On the basis of the literature review and the exploratory phase, it was clear that the adop-tion and the development of collaborative Supply Chain Pricing approaches are feasible only in particular supply chain contexts. Hence, the third phase of the research led to the development of the research framework and questions. The research framework analyzes the relation between contextual supply chain characteristics and the adoption of a collabo-rative pricing structure among supply chain partners, thus adopting a contingency perspec-tive. At the core of this model, we positioned the collaborative Supply Chain Pricing approaches found in the literature in order to understand in which manner the contextual variables facilitate their development. Moreover, the proposed framework seeks to analyze which different mechanisms (e.g. incentives, contracts, techniques) are adopted in the im-plementation of the collaborative pricing approaches. Therefore, addressing the previously identified gaps, the dissertation aims at answering the following research questions: “How do supply chain contextual variables act as enablers to develop a collaborative Supply chain Pricing approach?” and “In terms of pricing mechanisms, how is a collaborative Supply Chain Pricing approach effectively implemented?” Eventually, the fourth empirical phase adopted the multiple case study methodology to in-vestigate the research questions, using the questionnaire developed in the exploratory phase. Ten Italian agri-food supply chains focused on differentiated products have been se-lected to identify and analyze collaborative relationships in the pricing process; the unit of analysis of these case studies is the part (a dyad or more interacting counterparts) of the supply chain involved in pricing collaborations. The main outcomes of this research underline that the participation of an external institu-tional organization and the coordination by supply chain leader with experience in Supply Chain Management practices enable the development of collaborative pricing mechanisms which overcome the dyad, thus determining supply chain-wide collaborative approaches; moreover, the intervention of an external institutional partner enables a collaborative nego-tiation with the retail counterparts. In addition, collaborative pricing mechanisms vary in relation to the position within the supply chain and the approach (relational vs. transaction-al) adopted by the interacting supply chain counterparts. From an academic perspective, the contribution of this research lies in the first systematic review of collaborative Supply Chain Pricing and the analysis of this phenomen from a contingency perspective on the basis of the developed framework; moreover, this research contributes to theory by linking the conceptual approaches of Supply Chain Pricing identi-fied in the literature to effective cases of the implementation; furthermore, the results are discussed through the lenses of established theories. Finally, sustainability issues of agri-food supply chains are further discussed. This research offers also managerial insights to develop a tool to evaluate the organization and the supply chain context in which it is operating, in order to support managers to iden-tify and implement the suitable pricing collaborative mechanisms.
Il presente lavoro di sintesi della ricerca triennale di dottorato si incentra sullo studio del Supply Chain Pricing collaborativo, ossia il processo di pricing determinato dall’interazione dell’impresa con uno o più attori della supply chain nella definizione del proprio prezzo e di quello delle controparti coinvolte nella collaborazione. L’ambito di ricerca è di interesse recente ed è ancora poco approfondito in letteratura: tra-dizionalmente il pricing è stato inteso come un processo finalizzato a suddivedere i profitti tra due controparti all’interno di una negoziazione, senza prendere in considerazione la possibilità di agire in modo collaborativo nella definizione del prezzo, con l’obiettivo di sviluppare relazioni “win-win”. Solo recentemente alcuni autori hanno iniziato ad investi-gare lo sviluppo di nuovi approcci collaborativi in cui il processo di pricing riveste un ruolo chiave. Questi contributi evidenziano l’adozione di una nuova prospettiva nella definizione dei prezzi all’interno della supply chain, come risultato dell’interazione tra diversi membri della filiera sulla base della completa condivisione delle informazioni, in particolare in relazione ai costi (cost transparency). Tuttavia, questo filone di ricerca presenta diverse lacune da colmare in relazione all’effettiva implementazione di questi approcci emergenti. Dall’altro lato, le tematiche legate al pricing rivestono un importante ruolo a livello mana-geriale, in quanto vi è crescente interesse per modalità di pricing innovative finalizzate a garantire risultati competitivi, ma anche garantire la sostenibilità delle filiere: è il caso del settore agro-alimentare, appositamente selezionato per lo sviluppo della presente ricerca. Il progetto di ricerca è stato condotto lungo l’intero triennio del percorso di dottorato ed è stato suddiviso in quattro fasi. Durante la prima fase è stata effettuata un’analisi sistematica della letteratura che ha permesso di realizzare un primo quadro di sintesi sul tema del Sup-ply Chain Pricing collaborativo in una prospettiva interdisciplinare tra Marketing Industriale e Supply Chain Management, evidenziando i principali gap dell’attuale stato dell’arte della ricerca in questo ambito: in primo luogo una definizione univoca e condivisa del concetto di Supply Chain Pricing; la carenza di modelli concreti per l’implementazione di politiche collaborative simmetriche e paritetiche basate sul pricing all’interno del supply network; assenza di una visione globale di network che superi l’interazione esclusivamente diadica tra cliente e fornitore proposta nei principali contributi analizzati. Nella seconda fase, di tipo esplorativo, è stato possibile rintracciare nel settore agro-alimentare statunitense degli interessanti esempi di filiere collaborative nel processo di pri-cing. Nei casi “retrospettivi” analizzati si assiste alla ripartizione “win-win” dei profitti tra gli attori coinvolti attraverso meccanismi stabili e trasparenti di pricing e a una struttura della supply chain fondata su relazioni strategiche in cui il potere risulta distribuito in modo simmetrico tra le parti coinvolte. Dall’altro lato, si è indagato in due contesti differenti (ambito manifatturiero e third-party logistics providers) la possibilità di rintracciare colla-borazioni nel pricing a livello di supply chain: non sono stati rintracciati particolari approcci collaborativi nel pricing. Le interviste pilota hanno permesso di sviluppare e validare in collaborazione con la Prof. Ellram un questionario semi-strutturato finalizzato ad investigare per ogni anello della filiera coinvolto in relazioni collaborative nel pricing i processi interni all’organizzazione di definizione del prezzo, le interazioni collaborative con gli attori a monte (processo di acquisto da fornitori di primo livello ed oltre) e le interazioni collaborative con gli attori a valle (negoziazione con i clienti ed oltre). In seguito alla revisione bibliografica e alla fase esplorativa si è evidenziato come l’adozione di approcci collaborativi nel pricing all’interno della filiera sia influenzata dal contesto della supply chain. Inoltre, tali collaborazioni si realizzano con diverse modalità nel processo di pricing. Pertanto, la terza fase ha condotto allo sviluppo del framework e delle domande di ricerca. Il framework della ricerca lega i due approcci di Supply Chain Pricing collaborativo rintracciati nell’analisi della letteratura alle variabili contestuali che ne facilitano l’adozione e lo sviluppo, e i meccanismi di implementazione, ovvero l’insieme di tecniche di pricing, le tipologie contrattuali e gli incentivi con cui è possibile mettere in pratica i diversi approcci. In relazione ai gap definiti in precedenza, la tesi si prefigge pertanto l’obiettivo di rispondere alle seguenti due domande di ricerca: “In che modo le variabili contestuali influiscono come facilitatori sulla struttura di governance del processo collaborativo di pricing in un ambito di supply chain?” e “In termini di meccanismi di definizione dei prezzi, in che modo si realizza l’implementazione di un approccio collaborativo nel processo di pricing tra diversi attori della supply chain?”. Infine, la quarta fase empirica ha seguito la metodologia di ricerca del caso studio multiplo. La selezione dei casi studio è avvenuta all’interno del settore agro-alimentare, prendendo in considerazione alcune supply chain gestite da importanti aziende nazionali focalizzate su diversi prodotti alimentari differenziati e non appartenenti all’ambito commodity (dove il prezzo è legato esclusivamente a logiche di mercato sulla base di valori di riferimento dati da borse merci), con l’obiettivo di individuare relazioni collaborative nel pricing: dieci porzioni (diadi ed oltre) collaborative di supply chain sono state studiate come singoli casi. Alcuni tra i principali risultati della tesi evidenziano come l’intervento e la partecipazione di un attore istituzionale esterno alla supply chain e il coordinamento di un leader di filiera con esperienza nelle pratiche di Supply Chain Management favoriscano lo sviluppo e la concertazione di meccanismi di pricing collaborativo che superano la diade; l’intervento e la partecipazione di un attore istituzionale esterno alla supply chain favorisca la concertazione collaborativa del pricing con gli attori della Grande Distribuzione Organizzata; il tipo di collaborazione nel pricing vari in base al posizionamento all’interno della supply chain e all’approccio relazionale sviluppato dagli attori della filiera. Da un punto di vista accademico la tesi contribuisce a delineare una prima sistematica revi-sione della letteratura relativa al Supply Chain Pricing collaborativo e una rilettura di tale fenomeno attraverso prospettiva contingente sulla base del framework sviluppato; si con-tribuisce all’avanzamento della teoria relativa al Supply Chain Pricing collaborativo con casi reali e risultati pratici relativi alla sua implementazione; si propone una rilettura dei risultati sulla base di teorie manageriali consolidate; vi è inoltre un’esplorazione di ulteriori aspetti legati alla di sostenibilità delle filiere agri-food, alla base dello sviluppo di approcci collaborativi. Il contributo manageriale si identifica nella definizione delle linee guida per lo sviluppo di uno strumento per la valutazione dell’azienda e della filiera in cui opera in modo da supportare i manager nella scelta ed implementazione dei meccanismi di pricing collaborativo più convenienti per il contesto operativo.

Process industries has for long been important for the development of Swedish industry and society. All industries face different conditions that affect how to best run their operations. This thesis aims to describe some of the conditions that characterize process industries compared to other industries. Further one of these characteristics has been studied more closely. One of the traits of process industries is that they are positioned at the start of the transformation process close to the raw material mixing, separating or forming it into products often used for further transformation. Process industries hence become dependent on the properties of these materials. One of the most prominent characteristics inherent from the raw material properties is the divergent bill of material. The divergent bill of material originates from the fact that a given raw material is made up of different components that will yield several products with different characteristics when processed. When splitting the raw material into the desired products the yielded products from a certain raw material usually have different value to the producer, some more desired than others. These multiple products generated poses a challenge from a planning perspective raising questions like “How should we balance the supply and demand of all the products produced?”, “What shall we do with the excess products produced?”. The first paper in this thesis describe the production planning in four Swedish process industries with the ultimate aim to connect their planning to the supply chain characteristics they face as process industries. The study concludes that the industry specific conditions mainly affect planning at short time ranges when planning becomes more detailed. In general the use of planning or decision support systems is low, stemming from a, warranted or not, belief that general decision support systems do not fit process industries. Another finding is that the case companies mainly operate in niche markets. This study also highlighted that the planning complexity arising from characteristic of co- and by-product generation in combination with the lack of decision support systems requires further studies. The subsequent two papers focus on supply chain planning and coordination with a divergent bill of material. They present a mathematical model over the supply chain planning in a real case company in the specialty oils industry. The second paper investigates transfer pricing as a coordination tool by comparing decentralised supply chain planning with centralized planning in an integrated model. Transfer pricing is found to have a potential positive effect on supply chain planning while simultaneously creating problems in terms of uneven  distribution of the contribution margin among supply chain partners. Finally the third paper more closely investigates different ways to set transfer prices and comparing them to the optimal transfer prices. Setting optimal transfer prices with a divergent bill of material has proven to be less straightforward than the case with no dependencies between products. Some optimal transfer prices could even be set lower than the marginal cost for producing them due to the dependency between the products in the divergent bill of material. This indicates that there is an opportunity cost for a product that is dependent on the demand of other products.
Processindustrier har länge varit viktiga för utvecklingen av svensk industri och det svenska samhället. Alla branscher möter olika förutsättningar som påverkar hur verksamheten bäst skall drivas. Avhandlingen syftar till att beskriva några av de villkor som kännetecknar processindustrin jämfört med andra branscher. Slutligen har en av dessa kännetecknande egenskaper studerats närmare. En av de egenskaper som utmärker processindustrier är att de är positionerade vid början av omvandlingsprocessen nära råvaran och blandar, separerar eller formar den till produkter som ofta används för ytterligare förädling. Processindustrin blir därmed beroende av egenskaperna hos råmaterialet som används. En av de mest framträdande egenskaperna härrörande från dessa råmaterialegenskaper är det divergenta materialflödet. Det divergerande materialflödet har sitt ursprung i att ett visst råmaterial består av olika komponenter som ger flera produkter med olika egenskaper. När råmaterialet separeras i sina komponenter erhålls flera produkter som kan ha väldigt olika värde för producenten. Efterfrågan på de produkter som erhålls ur separeringen kan vara vitt skild från vad som erhålls ur produktionsprocessen. Denna obalans mellan efterfrågan och försörjning är en utmaning ur ett planeringsperspektiv och väcker frågor som " Hur ska efterfrågan och försörjning av de produkter som produceras balanseras?", "Hur skall överskottet på vissa produkter hanteras? ". Den första artikeln i denna avhandling beskriver produktionsplaneringen i fyra svenska processindustriföretag inom områdena pappersmassa, specialkemi, specialoljor samt papper och pappersmassa. Målet med studien var att jämföra planeringen av försörjningskedjan med de förutsättningar som processindustrin ställs inför. I studien dras slutsatsen att de branschspecifika förhållandena främst påverkar den kortsiktiga planeringen med mer detaljer. I allmänhet verkar användningen av planerings- eller beslutsstödsystem vara låg, som härrör från en, befogat eller inte, tro att generella beslutsstödssystem inte passar processindustri. Fallföretagen förefaller också huvudsakligen vara verksamma på nischmarknader. Denna studie betonar också vikten av djupare studier av energiplanering samt den planeringskomplexitet som uppkommer till följd av divergerande materialflöden. De två efterföljande artiklarna fokuserar på planering och koordinering av försörjningskedjan vid ett divergerande materialflöde. De presenterar en matematisk modell över försörjningskedjan i ett fallföretag som tillverkar specialoljor. Den andra artikeln undersöker effekter av att använda internprissättning som verktyg för koordinering av försörjningskedjor genom att jämföra decentraliserad försörjningskedjeplanering med en fullt integrerad centraliserad planering. Internprissättning visar sig ha potentiellt positiva effekter på planeringen av försörjningskedjan men skapar samtidigt problem i form av att täckningsbidraget kan fördelas väldigt ojämnt mellan partner i försörjningskedjan. Slutligen behandlar den tredje artikeln olika sätt att bestämma internpriser och utvärderar deras koordineringseffekter på försörjningskedjan genom att jämföra med optimal satta internpriser. Att bestämma optimala internpriser med ett divergerande materialflöde har visat sig bli komplicerat i och med det beroende som finns mellan produkterna som kommer från samma råmaterial. Optimala internpriser har visat sig kunna vara både avsevärt högre och avsevärt lägre än marginalkostanden för att producera dem. Detta indikerar att alternativkostnaden för en produkt kan påverkas starkt av efterfrågan på andra produkter den har en koppling till via råmaterialet de båda produceras från.

In this study, we focus on pricing and production decisions in reusable container systems with stochastic demand. We consider a producer that sells a single product to the customers in reusable containers with two supply options: (i) brand-new containers, (ii) returned containers from customers. Customers purchasing the products may return the containers to the producer to receive a deposit price. The return quantity depends on both customer demand and the deposit price determined by the producer. Hence, the producer has the opportunity to manipulate the return quantity via the deposit price. The unit cost of filling brand-new containers is different than the unit cost of refilling returned containers. We also consider resource restrictions on the production operations. Our setting represents certain hybrid manufacturing / remanufacturing systems where (i) the producer collects and recovers his own products, (ii) the producer supplies both brand-new and recovered products to his customers, and (iii) the customers are indierent between brand-new and recovered products. In this setting, we investigate the optimal pricing and production decisions in order to maximize the producer`s profit. Our approach utilizes non-linear optimization techniques. We characterize the optimal acquisition fee and the optimal order quantity of brand-new containers analytically and investigate the effect of parameters with an extensive computational study.

This work brings a systematic approach to the design of a transaction-based transfer-pricing policy of a multinational group and related tax optimization. The foundation of the work is a description and analysis of all aspect of the transfer-pricing regulation including a detailed classification of particular business risks. Using a certain simplification of the complicated relations in multinational groups, a system compliant with transfer-pricing rules is designed, hence minimizing the tax risk. Further, I devote my attention to rather complicated areas of transfer-pricing like pricing of payments for intangible property, pricing in non-standard structures and allocation of exchange rate risk. After the build-up of the architecture of the transfer-pricing system, analysis of the tax optimization possibilities adhering to all regulatory requirements is carried out. The detailed description of the tax effective supply chain management planning concept and other planning instruments is presented. The final part is devoted to the negative tax implications of business restructuring steps analyzed on the examples of particular structures.

In a business environment, using dynamic pricing is a standard practice, especially in the management of revenue. Given the availability of online information concerning inventory and pricing, customers are in a position to understand pricing strategies that sellers employ, and at the same time to be able to develop a possible response strategy. In this thesis, Dynamic Pricing in the Supply Chain: Bringing the Perishable Approach to Dynamic Car Market is investigated and evaluated. This study incorporates strategic consumer response to dynamic prices, particularly for perishable goods, using a number of variables, such as income, demand and price. The main factors that influence stochastic behavior of prices in car market supply chains are the focus of the analysis. It also includes the appropriate parameters to include in a dynamic optimization-pricing supply chain problem and a discussion of how businesses can efficiently optimize the pricing problem in a stochastic market situation.

Thesis (Ph.D)--Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009.
Committee Chair: Keskinocak, Pinar; Committee Co-Chair: Vande Vate, John; Committee Member: Ferguson, Mark; Committee Member: Griffin, Paul; Committee Member: Swann, Julie. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.

Ce travail étudie le problème de maximisation des profits du détaillant et examine ses stratégies optimales dans un marché sensible aux prix et à l'écologie. Ce travail commence par un modèle de référence dans lequel un détaillant offre un seul type de produit aux clients. Les produits sont fabriqués par un fournisseur et envoyés au détaillant. Le détaillant conserve les produits dans un entrepôt à proximité des clients pour les servir dès leur arrivée. La demande pour les produits est aléatoire et suit la distribution de Poisson. Le taux moyen d'arrivée des clients est sensible au prix de détail et au niveau d'émission de carbone du produit. Le temps de remplissage de l'entrepôt du détaillant est également aléatoire et suit la distribution exponentielle. Le problème consiste à déterminer le prix du produit, le niveau d'émission de carbone et la taille de la commande. Nous résolvons le problème par une approche analytique et fournissons les expressions fermées des solutions optimales.Le modèle de référence est étendu de la manière dont le détaillant offre deux produits substituables aux clients. La demande pour chaque produit dépend de son prix et de son niveau d'émission de carbone (en baisse) et dépend du prix et du niveau d'émission de carbone de l'autre produit (en hausse). Le problème de maximisation des bénéfices du détaillant est formulé dans un environnement stochastique sous différents paramètres (variables de décision) et est résolu par une approche analytique. Selon les résultats, le marché se distingue en trois catégories : 1- Marché du passage au vert, 2- Marché du passage au prix, et 3- Marché neutre. Les différentes structures de marché fournissent des informations utiles.La concurrence dynamique entre deux détaillants, dont chacun a son fournisseur, est prise en compte. Les détaillants proposent deux produits substituables que chacun d'entre eux offre un type de produit. Deux modèles mathématiques symétriques déterminent les prix des produits, les niveaux d'émission de carbone et la taille des commandes. La décision de chaque détaillant a une incidence sur celle de l'autre détaillant. Les problèmes généraux sont résolus par une approche analytique et déterminent l'équilibre de Nash. Toutefois, dans la pratique, il existe de nombreuses situations où un détaillant existant est déjà présent sur le marché et où un nouveau détaillant entre sur le marché. Deux situations sont examinées et résolues : 1- La concurrence sans réaction et 2- La concurrence avec réaction partielle. Les expressions proches des solutions optimales sont présentées pour tous les scénarios.Ce travail termine ses études par l'introduction d'une fonction de demande non linéaire. Dans la littérature, toutes les études considèrent une fonction de demande linéaire (à notre connaissance). Cependant, nos partenaires du projet ANR CONCLUDE ont constaté que la fonction linéaire n'est pas suffisante. Ainsi, une nouvelle fonction de demande non linéaire est envisagée concernant l'amélioration des émissions de carbone. Les études de nos partenaires révèlent également que l'amélioration de l'écologie conduit à une augmentation de la demande pour un certain potentiel de marché, et qu'après cela, elle est constante. La deuxième fonction de demande est appelée "cap". Le modèle de référence est reformulé avec différentes fonctions de demande et résolu. Ensuite, des expressions de forme fermée de solutions optimales sont présentées. Un exemple numérique est réalisé pour comparer les bénéfices avec différentes fonctions de demande. Le plafond non linéaire est considéré comme une référence et comparé à d'autres. Les résultats révèlent que lorsque le nombre maximum de clients attirés est faible (moins de 20 %), le modèle de plafonnement linéaire est plus performant que les autres. Lorsqu'il est élevé, le modèle non linéaire est plus performant
This work studies the retailer's profit maximization problem and investigates his/her optimal strategies in a price- and greenness- sensitive market. This work starts with a benchmark model where a retailer offers one kind of product to customers. The products are produced by a supplier and sent to the retailer. The retailer keeps the products in a warehouse near the customers to serve them as soon as one arrives. The demand for the products is random and follows the Poisson distribution. The customers' arrival mean rate is sensitive to retail price and carbon emission level of the product. The refilling time of the retailer's warehouse is also random and follows Exponential distribution. The problem consists of deciding the product's price, carbon emission level, and order size. We solve the problem by an analytical approach and provide the closed-form expressions of the optimal solutions.The benchmark model is extended in the way that retailer offers two substitutable products to customers. The demand for each product depends on its price and carbon emission level (decreasing) and depends on the other product's price and carbon emission level (increasing). The retailer's profit maximization problem is formulated in a stochastic environment under different settings (decision variables) and is solved by an analytical approach. According to the results, the market is distinguished into three categories: 1- Greenness-Driven Switchovers market, 2- Price-Driven Switchovers market, and 3- Neutral market. Different market structures provide useful insights.Dynamic competition between two retailers, which each of them has its supplier, is considered. Retailers offer two substitutable products that each of them offers one kind of product. Two symmetric mathematical models decide the products' prices, carbon emission levels, and order sizes. Each retailer's decision affects the other retailer's decision. The general problems are solved by an analytical approach and determined the Nash equilibrium. However, in practice, there are many situations where an existing retailer is already operating in the market, and a new retailer enters the market. Two situations are considered and solved: 1- Competition without reaction and 2- Competition with partial reaction. The close-form expressions of the optimal solutions are presented for all scenarios.This work ends its studies by introducing a non-linear demand function. In the literature, all studies consider a linear demand function (to the best of our knowledge). However, our partners in project ANR CONCLuDE found out that the linear function is not sufficient. Thus, a new non-linear demand function is considered concerning carbon emission improvement. Our partners' studies also reveal that improving greenness leads to increasing the demand for a certain amount of market potential, and after that, it is constant. The second demand function is called cap. The benchmark model is re-formulated with different demand functions and solved. Then, closed-form expressions of optimal solutions are presented. A numerical example is conducted to compare profits with different demand functions. The non-linear cap is considered as a reference and compared to others. The results reveal that when the maximum attracted costumers are low (below 20%), the linear cap model performs better than others do. When it is high, the non-linear model performs better

Identifying parameters for state-space models in high dimensioned cases requires a complex methodology. We offer an example of application for hedonic prices and the hyper-parameter estimation for dynamic supply chains. An algorithm is created based on the Kalman filter-smoother and Expectation-Maximization procerures. Stopping rules for the algorithm are analyzed and compared. We detected the best stopping rule for our environment. In this way, the hedonic prices estimated can be used for any decision process. The thesis point to an application in forecast analysis for product prices. Accurate forecasting of market price developments is essential in achieving superior market performance. Especially in oligopolistic markets for durable consumer products a robust understanding of selling prices is important, as it drives pricing behavior as well as procurement, inventory and production decisions. Moreover, a supply chain perspective is indispensable for pricing forecasts since companies not only compete for product sales but also for limited resources. The thesis explores the use of dynamic multivariate hedonics-based pricing models that explicitly model selling prices with the market valuation of constituting parts. The model is applied to TAC SCM, a supply-chain trading agent competition. To find unknown component prices series we apply the Kalman filter technique to smooth and forecast implicit prices using the EM algorithm. Finally, we present results of our analysis to establish the viability of this method.

Parallèlement au prix, le délai de livraison est un facteur clé de compétitivité pour les entreprises. De plus les entreprises sont plus que jamais obligées de respecter ce délai promis. La combinaison du choix du prix et du délai promis implique de nouveaux compromis et offre de nombreuses perspectives. Un délai plus court peut entraîner une augmentation de la demande, mais augmente également le risque de livraison tardive et donc décourager les clients. A contrario un délai plus long ou un prix plus élevé entraîne généralement une baisse de la demande. Or malgré le rôle stratégique conjoint du prix et des délais et leurs impacts sur la demande, dans la littérature en gestion des opérations on suppose très généralement une demande exogène (fixée a priori) même si la conception de la chaîne impacte fortement les délais (localisation des sites, positionnement des stocks,..) et donc la demande. Nous nous sommes donc intéressés à ces choix de fixation des délais promis et du prix dans un contexte de demande endogène.La littérature traitant du choix du délai et du prix sous demande endogène a principalement considéré un contexte de fabrication à la commande (Make to Order). Un papier fondateur de Palaka et al en 1998 a présenté cette problématique avec une modélisation de l’entreprise par une file d’attente M/M/1 et nos travaux se placent dans la suite de ce travail. Notre revue de la littérature a permis d'identifier de nouvelles perspectives et nous proposons trois extensions dans cette thèse.Dans notre première contribution, en utilisant le cadre de Palaka et al, nous considérons que le coût de production est une fonction décroissante du délai. Dans tous les articles publiés dans ce contexte, le coût de production unitaire a été supposé constant. Pourtant en pratique, le coût de production unitaire dépend du délai promis, l'entreprise pouvant mieux gérer le processus de production et réduire les coûts de production en proposant des délais plus longs aux clients.Dans la deuxième contribution, nous considérons toujours le cadre de Palaka et al, mais modélisons l'entreprise comme une file d'attente M/M/1/K, pour laquelle la demande est donc rejetée s'il y a déjà K clients dans le système. Dans la littérature issue du travail de Palaka seule la file d'attente M/M/1 a été utilisée, ce qui signifie que tous les clients sont acceptés, ce qui peut entraîner de longues durées de séjour dans le système. Notre idée est basée sur le fait que rejeter certains clients, même si cela peut apparaitre dans un premier temps comme une perte de demande, pourrait aider à proposer un délai plus court pour les clients acceptés, et finalement conduire à une demande et donc un profit plus élevé.Dans la troisième contribution nous étudions un nouveau cadre pour le problème du délai et du prix en fonction de la demande endogène, en modélisant une chaîne logistique composée de deux étapes de production, modélisée par un réseau de files d’attente tandem (M/M/1-M/M/1). Dans la littérature avec ce cadre multi-entreprise, tous les articles ont considéré qu'un seul acteur avait des opérations de production, l'autre acteur ayant un délai nul. Nous avons étudié les scénarios centralisés et décentralisés.Pour chacun des nouveaux problèmes nous avons proposé des formulations maximisant le profit composé du revenu diminué des coûts de production, de stockage et pénalité de retard, et fourni des résolutions optimales, analytiques ou numériques. Ces résolutions nous ont amenés à démontrer de nouveaux résultats (retard moyen dans une M/M/1/K ; condition pour que des contraintes de service locales permettent d’assurer une contrainte de service globale dans un système en tandem). Nous avons mené des expériences numériques pour voir l’influence des différents paramètres
Along with the price, the delivery lead time has become a key factor of competitiveness for companies and an important purchase criterion for many customers. Nowadays, firms are more than ever obliged to meet their quoted lead time, which is the delivery lead time announced to the customers. The combination of pricing and lead time quotation implies new trade-offs and offers opportunities for many insights. For instance, on the one hand, a shorter quoted lead time can lead to an increase in the demand but also increases the risk of late delivery and thus may affect the firm’s reputation and deter future customers. On the other hand, a longer quoted lead time or a higher price generally yields a lower demand. Despite the strategic role of joint pricing and lead time quotation decisions and their impacts on demand, in the operations management literature an exogenous demand (a priory a known demand) is generally used in supply chain models, even if the design of the supply chain has a strong impact on lead times (i.e., sites location, inventory position, etc.) and thus affects the demand. Therefore, we are interested in the lead time quotation and pricing decisions in a context of endogenous demand (i.e., demand sensitive to price and quoted lead time).The literature dealing with pricing and lead time quotation under an endogenous demand mainly considered a make to order (MTO) context. A pioneer paper, Palaka et al. (1998), investigated this issue by modeling the company as an M/M/1 queue, and our work follows their footsteps. Our review of the literature allowed to identify new perspectives for this problem, which led to three main contributions in this thesis.In our first contribution, using Palaka et al.’s framework, we consider the unit production cost to be a decreasing function in quoted lead time. In most published papers, the unit production cost was assumed to be constant. In practice, the unit production cost generally depends on the quoted lead time. Indeed, the firm can manage better the production process and reduce the production cost by quoting longer lead time to the customers.In the second contribution, we still consider Palaka et al.’s framework but model the firm as an M/M/1/K queue, for which demand is rejected if there are already K customers in the system. In the literature on single firm setting following Palaka et al.’s research, only the M/M/1 queue was used, i.e., where all customers are accepted, which might lead to long sojourn times in the system. Our idea is based on the fact that rejecting some customers, might help to quote shorter lead time for the accepted ones, which might finally lead to a higher profitability, even if in the first glance we lose some demand.In the third contribution, we study a new framework for the lead time quotation and pricing problem under endogenous demand as we model the supply chain by two production stages in a tandem queue (M/M/1-M/M/1). In the literature with multi-firm setting, all papers considered that only one actor has production operations and the other actor has zero lead time. We investigated both the centralized and decentralized decision settings.For each problem studied, we formulated a profit-maximization model, where the profit consists of a revenue minus the production, storage and lateness penalty costs, and provides the optimum result (analytically or numerically). These resolutions led us to demonstrate new theoretical results (such as the expected lateness in an M/M/1/K, and the sufficient condition required to satisfy the global service constraint in a tandem queue by only satisfying the local service constraints). We also conducted numerical experiments and derived managerial insights

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2002.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 123-132).
Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web.
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
Abstracts in English and Chinese.

The dissertation contains two major research projects. In the first project, we first study a multi-period inventory planning problem. In each period, the firm under consideration can source from two possibly unreliable suppliers for a price-dependent demand. Our analysis suggests that the optimal procurement policy is neither a simple reorder-point policy nor a complex one without any structure, as previous studies suggest. Instead, we prove the existence of a reorder point for each supplier. No order is placed to that supplier for any inventory level above the reorder point and a positive order is issued to that supplier for almost every inventory level below the reorder point. We characterize conditions under which the optimal policy reveals monotone response to changes in the inventory level. Furthermore, two special cases of our model are examined in detail to demonstrate how our analysis generalizes a number of well-known results in the literature. In the second project, we study a long-run inventory planning problem in which the retailer can replenish inventory and change price adjustment. We establish that it is optimal to change the price from low to high in each replenishment cycle, the optimal order-up-to level may decrease when the ordering cost increases, and fewer customers are served when the unit cost of procurement increases. Additionally, we provide efficient algorithms to compute the optimal stocking and pricing policies.
text

碩士
國立臺灣大學
商學研究所
103
Supply chain finance has been a growing trend not only in the real business environment but also in supply chain management. Firms can fund their business by borrowing from banks or from their suppliers, provided they agree postponed payment. Moreover, there are more and more big retailers working with banks that will offer to advance cash to suppliers before the receivables become due. Therefore, the research examines a supply chain consisting of a supplier who decides an optimal whole price and a retailer who decides an optimal order quantity under different funding strategies, which includes bank credit, trade credit and factoring. The research also observes how some exogenous variables, including production costs, risk-free rate, the maximum proportion of receivables allowed to be factored, expected rate of return and demand variability, will affect the supplier and the retailers’ profits, the optimal wholesale price and the optimal order quantity. The research shows that the supplier will set a wholesale price equal to the market price in order to squeeze all of the retailer’s profits and absorb them under the equilibrium of trade credit, by reason of the default risk the supplier has to take. The research also finds that the interest banks charge for credit will make the retailer’s profits under the equilibrium of bank credit lower than the ones under normal condition (with sufficient capital). In addition, the analysis suggests that when the production cost decreases, the equilibrium of funding strategy will shift from bank credit to trade credit and then to factoring. The analysis also proves that the decrease in risk-free rate or the increase in the maximum proportion of receivables and expected rate of return will lead to the equilibrium of factoring.

The dissertation consists of three essays. In the first essay, I analyze the dynamic interactions in a decentralized distribution channel, composed of a manufacturer and a retailer, to launch an innovative durable product (IDP) whose underlying retail demand is influenced by word-of-mouth from past adopters and follows a Bass-type diffusion process. The word-of-mouth influence creates a trade-off between immediate and future sales/ profits, resulting in a multi-period dynamic supply chain coordination problem. The analysis shows that the manufacturer and retailer may have conflicts regarding their trade-offs and preferences between immediate and future profits. I characterize equilibrium pricing strategies and the resulting sales and profit trajectories. Surprisingly, I find that the manufacturer, and sometimes even the retailer, is better off with a myopic retailer strategy in some cases. Furthermore, I propose that revenue sharing contracts can coordinate the IDP supply chain throughout the entire planning horizon. In the second essay, I extend the demand model by considering the impact of shelf space allocation on the retail demand of an IDP. I assume the retail demand to be an increasing and concave function of the merchandise displayed on the shelf. I include a linear cost of shelf space in the retailer's objective function. I characterize the optimal dynamic shelf space allocation and retail pricing policies for the retailer and wholesale pricing policies for the manufacturer. I find that a myopic retailer allocates the constant amount of shelf-space to the IDP over the selling horizon, whereas the shelf space allocated to the IDP by a far-sighted retailer varies over time. Consistent with the first essay, the manufacturer and the retailer have conflict over the retailer's profitability strategy. In the third essay, I review the Stackelberg differential game models that study such issues in dynamic environments as production and inventory policies, outsourcing decisions, channel coordination, and competitive advertising. I introduce the basic concepts of the basics of the Stackelberg differential games. I focus on the models that derive the Stackelberg equilibria in the area of supply chain management and marketing channels.

碩士
國立清華大學
工業工程與工程管理學系
103
Previous research works focused on profit or monetary payoff maximization as the decision maker’s sole objective in coordinating the channel. However, the decision maker may deviate from his best response for some implicit reasons, which is called boundedly rational behaviors. Recently, fairness has been widely used to explain why the decision maker will have these incompletely rational behaviors. Cui et al. (2007) introduced fairness concerns into channel coordination in a dyadic model setting. The author showed that a simple wholesale price contract is still effective in coordinating the channel when fairness is involved. They demonstrated that the retailer would sacrifice his own profit to punish or reward the manufacturer’s wholesale price setting. In this thesis, we extend fairness concerns to a dual model setting, where the manufacturer can sell products to customers directly. Firstly, we analyze the retailer’s pricing strategy and find out the retailer would deviate from his profit maximized decision when the manufacturer’s wholesale price is too high or too low. Furthermore, it's discussed that the influence on manufacturers' profit brought by the different degrees of fairness the retailer requests, and we propose appropriate corresponding strategies for the manufacturer to adopt. Besides, based on the results, we find out that the dual channel setting requires less stringent condition to achieve coordination when only the retailer is fairness concerned.

碩士
國立雲林科技大學
工業工程與管理研究所碩士班
94
This research is discussion the pricing policy of seasonal goods. It is belong the “newsboy “problems but it has two ordering opportunity. First establish the profit functions of once order and twice order expect obtain the maximum profit in supply chain. Then use numerical analysis to compare the profit of once order opportunity and twice order opportunity. We consider the fore factors of this paper that is selling price 、wholesale price、 return price and customer require. Finally we obtain the two results the first is if the retailer has twice order chance it’s expect profit will more than has once order chance .The other is that the customer require is the main factor to influence the expect profit and the secondary factor is the wholesale price.

碩士
樹德科技大學
經營管理研究所
105
In this study, an optimal dynamic pricing and preservation technology investment model is established to determine the joint strategy maximizing the discounted total profit for the integrated supply chain over an infinite time horizon. We characterize the properties of the optimal pricing and preservation technology investment decisions and conduct numerical studies to investigate the impact of initial reference price and various system parameters on the optimal strategies and discounted total profit for the integrated supply chain. Finally, concluding remarks are offered.

碩士
國立臺灣大學
工業工程學研究所
99
In the research, we focus on supply chains in the clouds which provide three cloud services: infrastructure as a service（IaaS）, platform as a service（PaaS） and software as a service（SaaS）. Since more than one service is simultaneously required by customers, we can divide the market demand into three groups. First, we formulate supply chains in the clouds where IaaS and PaaS act as a strategic alliance, called hardware firms, and SaaS is an independent player who maximizes his own profits. Then, we develop a Stackelberg model to get optimal prices of hardware firms and software firm. Next, we apply the Nash bargaining game to allocate the hardware firms profits according to the firms’ utility functions. Finally, we conduct a sensitivity analysis to draw some managerial insight in our model.

碩士
國立臺灣科技大學
工業管理系
106
The promising growth of e-commerce becomes the consideration of companies to expand their business channels. In the demand fulfillment, firms in a supply chain are not only doing it through face-to-face transaction (offline channel), but through their website (online channel), which is called Dual-Channel Supply Chain (DCSC). Implementing DCSC can lead to two different possible outputs, increased profit caused by enlarged market and decreased profit caused by channel conflict. DCSC problems will become more complex when the companies want to produce or maintain only enough inventory to meet immediate demands while to avoid stock-outs. The answer of this problem is channel cooperation that may bring each channel an addition to their profits. This research proposes a quantitative model to study about joint decision between pricing and inventory policy in DCSC. Two important variables, namely price and order quantity, are used to coordinate an extended DCSC structure consisting of offline, online and reseller channels. An EOQ model is added to establish the total gain of each channel and evaluate the financial performance of three scenarios observed, namely non-cooperative, semi-cooperative, and fully-cooperative scenarios. The study proposed a model to resolve the joint decision covering pricing and inventory policy in DCSC and to determine the optimum price and order quality for offline, online, and reseller channel, so that DCSC achieves maximum profit. Mathematical models are developed based on the scenarios proposed, then optimization process is done using MATLAB. The result of numerical experiments shows that fully-cooperative scenario generates the best financial performance. However, the decision about the best scenario is not an absolute decision, since it can be changed in the future regarding the changes in system conditions. The result of sensitivity analysis is done to see which parameter is critical to the total gain.

碩士
長庚大學
商管專業學院
104
This thesis is based on the situation which possesses one manufacturer, one retailer and one remanufacturer. When the manufacturer produces goods, it will deliver to the retailer. The retailer will sell it to customers. However, the retailer must face the return due to the defect of goods and preference of customers. For return, the retailer has two choices. One is to scrap the return and the other one is to request remanufacturer to refurbish it and deliver it back to the retailer. The retailer sells it to customers as the refurbishment. The supply chain translates to closed-loop supply chain. In the thesis, how to obtain the most beneficial profit by pricing the new and remanufactured product is an important issue. In this thesis, we assume there are two kinds of supply chain models, one is Non-Coordination Supply Chain and the other one is Coordination Supply Chain model. We compare the profits of those two kinds of model with the model in the thesis. Furthermore, we also study the proportion of return and the proportion of the market which only sells the new products how to influence the total profit. In the thesis, we found if the supply chain can lower those proportions, then it can get the better profit.

碩士
國立中正大學
企業管理所
94
In this study we consider a simple two-stage supply chain model consisting of a single vendor and a single buyer. The buyer places orders according to an EOQ-based inventory model in order to minimize its total cost, and the vendor plans its production according to the orders received in order to maximize its total profit. In practice, if the vendor receives orders earlier, then it can plan production more efficiently which will decrease the production cost (which in turn increase the profit); also, if the buyer places orders earlier, then it may expect to have purchasing discount from the vendor which will decrease the total cost. In the supply chain model considered, we investigate both the lead time effect of order placement (provided by the buyer) on the vendor’s total profit, and the purchasing discount of pricing policy (provided by the vendor) on the buyer’s total cost. We show that the supply chain may benefit from the coordination for both parties.

碩士
國立中央大學
工業管理研究所
96
In this compete intense market, how attracts the customer to come to purchase the product, make maximize profit, becomes the important issue for every retailers. We discusses the single product sold though two competing retailers s, the demand effects by sell price and inventory level, furthermore, retailer competes in sell price. The objective of this research is known how the sell price and the order interval set under competing market. The demand function of this research effects by sell price and inventory level. Retailers competing in sell price. Do numerical studies know how the cost and the demand correlation coefficient influences profit, selling price, order interval. The retailer should grasp the market demand, decides the suitable selling price and order interval to obtain the optimal profit.

碩士
國立中央大學
工業管理研究所
95
This thesis extends Inderfurth and Schefer’s finding of Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) in the environment of current supply chain wholesale price contracts.These supply chain wholesale price contracts are: push, pull, and advance-purchase discount contracts. We investigate performance of supply chain members under wholesale price contracts when facing the market risk change. The supplier has only one opportunity to produce inventory before the selling season. We examine the CAPM methodology to calculate the stochastic cash flows of the supplier and the retailer for push, pull, and advance-purchase discount contracts. By these above procedures, we will find out the supplier’s optimal production quantity to maximize cash flows of each three supply chain contract. Also, advance-purchase discount contract will obtain largest total discounting value out of three contracts. In the numerical experiment, we analyze how wholesale prices sets, market value per unit of risk, and risk-free interest rate affect the cash flows of the supply chain and each member, and find out the supplier’s optimal production quantity for three wholesale prices contracts.

碩士
國立屏東科技大學
工業管理系所
102
This study based on Stackelberg structure with two echelon supply chains and the market was leaded by manufacture. Two retailers and one manufacture how to maximizing their profits respectively or cooperating with each other through a superior strategy. We applied mathematical method with non-linear demand and total cost function to find out a optimal solution; meanwhile, we also discuss some cases to realize the context under non-cooperation and cooperation strategies to get further understanding about their interactive situations.

碩士
國立臺灣大學
工業工程學研究所
99
A product whose demand takes place only in a specific period of a year is called “seasonal product.” Due to demand uncertainty and the short life, a retailer faces a problem of determining the timing and the quantity of orders. In order to collect more information, retailers prefer to place orders closed to the peak season so that they can avoid the holding cost and therefore minimize demand forecast error. In this case, a manufacturer cannot produce enough products in the peak season due to capacity constraint. However, if the manufacturer prepares production in advance, stocking inventory will become a burden. Therefore, the manufacturer will attempt to circumvent this problem with a more efficient method. In this research, the manufacturer provides two ways to improve this problem; one is to design a discount contract, and the other is to expand capacity in the peak season. Under a discount contract, the manufacturer will offer a sale discount for every unit of the products sold in the off-peak season to induce retailers to make an early procurement. Capacity expansion in the peak season is a direct method to satisfy demand and also create economies of scale for the manufacturer. Here, we use the concept of Stackelberg game to construct our model under which a manufacturer faces a retailer to determine the optimal production strategy of a seasonal product by comparing the above two methods.

碩士
國立成功大學
工業與資訊管理學系
106
In recent years, we have witnessed the start-up of fast fashion industry which collect, recycle and sell remanufactured fashion products. Therefore, the agility supply chain system is an important issue for the manufacturing industry. In the light of this, retailers must provide the faster service making the supply chain more flexible, quick and effective response. This thesis considers a three-stage closed-loop supply chain consisting of a manufacturer, a remanufacturer, a distributor, a third party and a retailer. Based on different chain competing forms of chain members, three decision models viz. manufacturer-led, retailer-led and centralized scenarios are established to explore the chain members’ optimal strategies on price and service level. By using the backwards induction and game theory, the corresponding analytical optimal solutions are obtained. Finally, we carry out the sensitivity analysis of some key parameters through numerical studies for examining their influences on the pricing and service decisions and chain members’ maximum profits. On the basis of comparison and analysis, some managerial insights are derived.

Shipment Consolidation (SCL) is a logistics strategy that combines two or more orders or shipments so that a larger quantity can be dispatched on the same vehicle to the same market region. This dissertation aims to emphasize the importance and substantial cost saving opportunities that come with SCL in a logistics supply chain, by offering new models or by improving on the current body of literature. Our research revolves around "three main axes" in SCL: Single-Item Shipment Consolidation (SISCL), Multi-Item Shipment Consolidation (MISCL), and Pricing and Shipment Consolidation. We investigate those topics by employing various Operations Research concepts or techniques such as renewal theory, dynamic optimization, and simulation. In SISCL, we focus on analytical models, when the orders arrive randomly. First, we examine the conditions under which an SCL program enables positive savings. Then, in addition to the current SCL policies used in practice and studied in the literature, i.e. Quantity-Policy (Q-P), Time-Policy (T-P) and Hybrid Policy (H-P), we introduce a new one that we call the Controlled Dispatch Policy (CD-P). Moreover, we provide a cost-based comparison of those policies. We show that the Q-P yields the lowest cost per order amongst the others, yet with the highest randomness in dispatch times. On the other hand, we also show that, between the service-level dependent policies (i.e. the CD-P, H-P and T-P), H-P provides the lowest cost per order, while CD-P turns out to be more flexible and responsive to dispatch times, again with a lower cost than the T-P. In MISCL, we construct dispatch decision rules. We employ a myopic analysis, and show that it is optimal, when costs and the order-arrival processes are dependent on the type of items. In a dynamic setting, we apply the concept of time-varying probability to integrate the dispatching and load planning decisions. For the most common dispatch objectives such as cost per order, cost per unit time or cost per unit weight, we use simulation and observe that the variabilities in both cost and the optimal consolidation cycle are smaller for the objective of cost per unit weight. Finally on our third axis, we study the joint optimization of pricing and time-based SCL policy. We do this for a price- and time-sensitive logistics market, both for common carriage (transport by a public, for-hire trucking company) and private carriage (employing one's own fleet of trucks). The main motivation for introducing pricing in SCL decisions stems from the fact that transportation is a service, and naturally demand is affected by price. Suitable pricing decisions may influence the order-arrival rates, enabling extra savings. Those savings emanate from two sources: Scale economies (in private carriage) or discount economies (in common carriage) that come with SCL, and additional revenue generated by employing an appropriate pricing scheme. Throughout the dissertation, we offer numerical examples and as many managerial insights as possible. Suggestions for future research are offered.

Zhang, Xiaopeng.
Thesis Ph.D. Chinese University of Hong Kong 2015.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 111-115).
Abstracts also in Chinese.
Title from PDF title page (viewed on 10, November, 2016).

碩士
國立臺灣科技大學
資訊管理系
102
This paper investigates four models for the closed-loop supply chain including the decentralized Stackelberg game and centrally coordinated system model. There are different roles which are responsible for collecting the used products from the consumers: the manufacturer, the retailer and the independent third party. For the centralized model, we view the manufacturer and the retailer as one central planner who sells products to the consumers and buys the used products back from them, and then remanufactures those returned products. Under the basis of these two different game theories, we assume that the manufacturer’s production rate is greater than the consumers’ demand rate for the products and develop the inventory systems of the four closed-loop supply chain models and describe them as profit maximization problems by mathematical formulations. The problems are solved by developing algorithms to find the optimal/equilibrium solutions, and the analytical results for the optimized closed-loop supply chain structures are presented. At last, some numerical examples are provided to illustrate the features of our models. Moreover, we can get such conclusions: centrally coordinated system collection is the best profitable model which is better than retailer collection, manufacturer collection, and third-party collection sequentially.

碩士
國立東華大學
企業管理學系
95
Abstract Any administration goals of enterprise is to pursues their long-term existence. The most common two basic goals are cost-minimization and profit-maximization. If a enterprise wants to reach the goal of profit-maximization, optimal product-pricing is one of the important key-factors. Making a right product-pricing decision will maximize company’s profit and strengthen it’s competitiveness. In this research, we consider a single-product two-echelon supply chain contained a single-supplier and a single-retailer. We adopt the model of Dong and Xu (2002); however, we consider that the retailer takes markup pricing as an extra decision and unit production cost of the supplier decreases as the production volume increases. We analyze the model with the situations of VMI and non-VMI, and then compare the order lot size, product-pricing, retailer’s profit, supplier’s profit and purchase price of both situations. Based on real examples of communication equipment manufacturer and it’s buyer in Dong and Xu（2002）, our analysis shows that total profit of the supply chain will be increased by applying VMI, but the profit of the supplier will be decreased. That is, VMI is beneficial to supply chain, besides the retailer’s benefit is greater than supplier. The supplier’s inventory cost will be increased by using VMI, the increased cost with be transferred partially to the retailer by an increase of purchase price. The increase of the purchase price will also increase the sale price to end-consumer through retailer’s markup pricing strategy.

碩士
國立臺灣大學
工業工程學研究所
105
To expand the market shares of telecom operators, the subsidy strategy is frequently used as a competitive mechanism in the telecommunication industry recent years. Consumers can obtain the smartphone at a low upfront cost and repay the price of the handset monthly throughout the contract. As the markets become more mature, subsidies might either force operators to spend excessively on marketing costs or compel operators to increase contract prices which may have negative impact on the benefits of entire supply chain. In this research, we investigate the influence of subsidy strategy and attempt to generate managerial insights for the manufacturer and operators. To improve the efficacy of the telecommunication supply chain, we provide a revenue sharing strategy compared to the existing subsidy strategy. We define and analyze the two-tier conceptual models by the Stackelberg-type game with Cournot competition. Through the equilibrium decisions of the manufacturer and operators, we find out the consumer preferences toward subsidies and the subsidy increment costs have a great impact on the interests of the manufacturer, operators and the end customers. There also exists feasible regions that the participants in the telecommunication supply chain can obtain higher profits in the revenue sharing strategy than subsidy strategy under different scenarios.

碩士
國立雲林科技大學
工業工程與管理研究所碩士班
100
Consumers’ purchase behaviors are related to not only sales prices but also their preferences. The study investigates two firms’ pricing and customizing decision in a simultaneous game and in a sequential game: firms determine the prices and the degree of customization at the same time, or they determine the degree of customization before the price decisions. Moreover, we develop three production models: (1) both two firms only produce the standard products; (2) a firm produces customized products and the other firm produces standard products; (3) both two firms are produce customized products. In this study, we formulate a competitive supply chain consisting of two firms and derive their equilibrium pricing and customizing decisions. Then, we characterize firms’ profit by using the numerical analysis. Finally, we compare the profits at equilibrium between two game types under the three production model. Academic and practical managerial insights are provided for supply chain managers.

In this dissertation, I develop a new theoretical framework for the modeling, pricing analysis, and computation of solutions to electric power supply chains with power generators, suppliers, transmission service providers, and the inclusion of consumer demands. In particular, I advocate the application of finite-dimensional variational inequality theory, projected dynamical systems theory, game theory, network theory, and other tools that have been recently proposed for the modeling and analysis of supply chain networks (cf. Nagurney (2006)) to electric power markets. This dissertation contributes to the extant literature on the modeling, analysis, and solution of supply chain networks, including global supply chains, in general, and electric power supply chains, in particular, in the following ways. It develops a theoretical framework for modeling, pricing analysis, and computation of electric power flows/transactions in electric power systems using the rationale for supply chain analysis. The models developed include both static and dynamic ones. The dissertation also adds a new dimension to the methodology of the theory of projected dynamical systems by proving that, irrespective of the speeds of adjustment, the equilibrium of the system remains the same. Finally, I include alternative fuel suppliers, along with their behavior into the supply chain modeling and analysis framework. This dissertation has strong practical implications. In an era in which technology and globalization, coupled with increasing risk and uncertainty, complicate electricity demand and supply within and between nations, the successful management of electric power systems and pricing become increasingly pressing topics with relevance not only for economic prosperity but also national security. This dissertation addresses such related topics by providing models, pricing tools, and algorithms for decentralized electric power supply chains. This dissertation is based heavily on the following coauthored papers: Nagurney, Cruz, and Matsypura (2003), Nagurney and Matsypura (2004, 2005, 2006), Matsypura and Nagurney (2005), Matsypura, Nagurney, and Liu (2006).