The effects of customer rebates and retailer incentives on a manufacturer's profits and sales

In some industries such as automotive, production costs are largely fixed and therefore maximizing revenue is the main objective. Manufacturers use promotions directed to the end customers and/or retailers in their distribution channels to increase sales and market share. We study a game theoretical model to examine the impact of “retailer incentive” and “customer rebate” promotions on the manufacturer's pricing and the retailer's ordering/sales decisions. The main tradeoff is that customer rebates are given to every customer, while the use of retailer incentives is controlled by the retailer. We consider several models with different demand characteristics and information asymmetry between the manufacturer and a price discriminating retailer, and we determine which promotion would benefit the manufacturer under which market conditions. When demand is deterministic, we find that retailer incentives increase the manufacturer's profits (and sales) while customer rebates do not unless they lead to market expansion. When the uncertainty in demand (“market potential”) is high, a customer rebate can be more profitable than the retailer incentive for the manufacturer. With numerical examples, we provide additional insights on the profit gains by the right choice of promotion.© 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2010     

基于经济绩效的国防工业市场最优集中度研究

以满足企业利润最大化和社会福利最大化双重效率标准的思想为基础,通过拟合我国国防支出需求函数和国防工业企业的成本函数,对我国国防工业市场最优集中度进行了理论研究,得出最优企业数量的一般表达式,并以我国航空工业上市公司为例,对其市场集中度展开了系统性估算。研究结果表明,我国国防工业产业的最优企业数量可以根据相关数据与拟合出的参数得到一个明确的数值,并且我国国防工业产业的最优市场集中度表现为适度集中,而在特殊情况下表现为完全集中。我国航空工业上市公司的最优企业数量为14家时,能够满足企业利润最大化与市场出清的双重标准,市场集中度达到最优。     

Addressing the “headwinds” faced by the European arms industry

ABSTRACT

The European arms industry is challenged by several adverse “headwinds.” Fragmentation leads to costly duplications and, in conjunction with stagnating budgets and sharply increasing costs, prevents firms from exploiting economies of scale and learning. This is exacerbated by size differentials vis-a-vis the leading US arms manufacturers and competition from emerging producers. As some “headwinds” are self-enforcing, far-reaching industrial and policy responses are required to improve the industry's outlook. As exports may not indefinitely compensate for low domestic demand, there is an economic imperative for further cross-border collaboration and consolidation. Despite various EU policy initiatives, progresses regarding the European Defence Equipment Market and strengthening the European Defence Technological Industrial Base have been relatively slow. It remains to be seen whether the European Defence Fund will be the proclaimed “game-changer,” raising competitiveness of the European arms industry. At the same time, the UK's withdrawal from the EU adds uncertainties.     

A general strategic capacity planning model under demand uncertainty

Capacity planning decisions affect a significant portion of future revenue. In equipment intensive industries, these decisions usually need to be made in the presence of both highly volatile demand and long capacity installation lead times. For a multiple product case, we present a continuous‐time capacity planning model that addresses problems of realistic size and complexity found in current practice. Each product requires specific operations that can be performed by one or more tool groups. We consider a number of capacity allocation policies. We allow tool retirements in addition to purchases because the stochastic demand forecast for each product can be decreasing. We present a cluster‐based heuristic algorithm that can incorporate both variance reduction techniques from the simulation literature and the principles of a generalized maximum flow algorithm from the network optimization literature. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2006     

从吉化双苯厂爆炸事故处置解读化工火灾扑救对策

吉化双苯厂“11.13”爆炸火灾事故是一起典型的化工类火灾事故,造成了严重的财产损失和人员伤亡。这起火灾爆炸事故具有爆炸、燃烧速度快、立体式燃烧、过火面积大、危害性大等特点,总结了这起事故处置经验,给出了准确判断,科学决策;快攻近战;统一指挥,协同作战;多种措施相结合;冷却防爆,堵截蔓延;隐蔽抵近,适时出击等处置化工类火灾的对策。     

我国石油化工消防安全对策研究

随着我国石油天然气生产、消费比重的不断增大,与之相应的消防安全隐患也有增大的趋势。为此,应加强生产安全规章制度的建立和落实,加大消防硬件的建设和合理化部署,加大监管措施和力度,最大限度减少石油化工行业的灾害,为石油天然气的战略调整提供安全保障。     

基于层次聚类法的化工装置火灾爆炸灾害事故模式分析

化工装置灾害事故模式的研究,有益于从源头上做好灾害事故的预防工作。在介绍传统事故模式分析方法的基础上,提出了基于层次聚类法的化工装置火灾爆炸灾害事故模式分析方法,并对近20年100起相关灾害事故案例进行了模式分析研究。     

Capable Companies or Changing Markets? Explaining the Export Performance of Firms in the Defence Industry

The paper presents an analysis of the factors explaining the export performance of firms in the defence sector. We focus on the case of Norway, and make use of two complementary methodologies: the first is based on econometric firm-level data analysis for the whole population of defence companies, and the second is based on qualitative case study research on the three most important defence export products (weapon stations, ammunition and electronics). Our empirical results highlight the importance of four major success factors for exporting firms: (1) the participation in offset agreements; (2) the ability to focus on their set of core competencies; (3) their R&D activities and interactions with the public S&T system; and (4) demand opportunities and, relatedly, user-producer interactions.     

Bounded flexibility in days‐on and days‐off scheduling

This article presents a flexible days‐on and days‐off scheduling problem and develops an exact branch and price (B&P) algorithm to find solutions. The main objective is to minimize the size of the total workforce required to cover time‐varying demand over a planning horizon that may extend up to 12 weeks. A new aspect of the problem is the general restriction that the number of consecutive days on and the number of consecutive days off must each fall within a predefined range. Moreover, the total assignment of working days in the planning horizon cannot exceed some maximum value. In the B&P framework, the master problem is stated as a set covering‐type problem whose columns are generated iteratively by solving one of three different subproblems. The first is an implicit model, the second is a resource constrained shortest path problem, and the third is a dynamic program. Computational experiments using both real‐word and randomly generated data show that workforce reductions up to 66% are possible with highly flexible days‐on and days‐off patterns. When evaluating the performance of the three subproblems, it was found that each yielded equivalent solutions but the dynamic program proved to be significantly more efficient. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 60: 678–701, 2013     

Country survey VI: Australia

Australia is a geographically large country, with the world's longest national coastline to defend, but a relatively small economy of some 17.5 million people. Since World War II, Australia has faced the dilemma of how to structure defence policy in the absence of an identifiable threat. Its policy of self‐reliance aims to permit Australia to conduct defensive operations in the event of low/medium level threats without depending immediately on its allies. This is to be achieved through the technological sophistication of defence equipment, a highly professional but small defence force and local industry support.

The burden of defence, measured as the share of defence outlay in GDP declined from about 3% in 1971–72 to about 2.3% in 1993–94. It has been the Government's policy to encourage the development of local defence‐related industry, in particular in areas such as: electronics/optics; communications and information technology; aerospace; shipbuilding and repair, munitions; and land vehicles. However, defence procurement has a small impact on the Australian economy as a whole.