The impact of operational decisions on the design of salesforce incentives

When facing high levels of overstock inventories, firms often push their salesforce to work harder than usual to attract more demand, and one way to achieve that is to offer attractive incentives. However, most research on the optimal design of salesforce incentives ignores this dependency and assumes that operational decisions of production/inventory management are separable from design of salesforce incentives. We investigate this dependency in the problem of joint salesforce incentive design and inventory/production control. We develop a dynamic Principal‐Agent model with both Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection in which the principal is strategic and risk‐neutral but the agent is myopic and risk‐averse. We find the optimal joint incentive design and inventory control strategy, and demonstrate the impact of operational decisions on the design of a compensation package. The optimal strategy is characterized by a menu of inventory‐dependent salesforce compensation contracts. We show that the optimal compensation package depends highly on the operational decisions; when inventory levels are high, (a) the firm offers a more attractive contract and (b) the contract is effective in inducing the salesforce to work harder than usual. In contrast, when inventory levels are low, the firm can offer a less attractive compensation package, but still expect the salesforce to work hard enough. In addition, we show that although the inventory/production management and the design of salesforce compensation package are highly correlated, information acquisition through contract design allows the firm to implement traditional inventory control policies: a market‐based state‐dependent policy (with a constant base‐stock level when the inventory is low) that makes use of the extracted market condition from the agent is optimal. This work appears to be the first article on operations that addresses the important interplay between inventory/production control and salesforce compensation decisions in a dynamic setting. Our findings shed light on the effective integration of these two significant aspects for the successful operation of a firm. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 61: 320–340, 2014     

基于星架系统结构参数的卫星载荷减振方法

卫星工程中广泛采用的有效载荷支架结构可能会与卫星主体结构发生动力耦合,进而造成有效载荷响应显著放大。进一步将有效载荷支架与卫星主体结构考虑为一个整体系统(称为星架系统)。采用有限元方法建立某型卫星系统级动力学分析模型,从中提取结构参数建立集中参数模型,并针对结构参数进行单变量影响分析。结果表明:所建集中参数模型能够反映支架结构与卫星主体结构之间动力耦合规律,载荷响应对两者频率参数的敏感程度远高于其阻尼和质量参数,卫星结构设计阶段应重点考量主体结构和支架结构频率关系以优化卫星载荷的动力学环境。     

卫星在役考核相关问题研究

各类卫星在现代战争中发挥着重要和关键作用。我国传统的卫星试验和鉴定具有很强的科研试验性质,承制单位和用户重点关注的是性能检验,较少考虑作战效能和部队适用性等指标。为推动卫星装备建设和应用,装备试验鉴定部门初步组织开展了相应的在役考核工作。文章对比了美军装备作战试验与鉴定、我国作战试验与在役考核的概念;提出卫星在役考核的六大特点;分析卫星在役考核的组织方式、组织机构和组织保障的不足,提出相应发展建议;研究卫星在役考核指标体系设计、分析评估方法、问题反馈与整改等方面的不足,并提出相应措施建议。     

多旋翼无人机减振分析与实验

针对多旋翼无人机机身系统振动过大导致飞行状态不稳的问题,基于有限元仿真技术与实验方法,进行了减振分析。通过频率分析,确定系统振动过大的原因为固有频率与激励频率耦合导致的共振现象,且共振频点的模态振型包含一阶挥舞、一阶摆振和二阶摆振振型。提出了优化机身壳体截面形状的设计方案,在不增加额外质量的情况下,将一阶挥舞、一阶摆振和二阶摆振振型对应的频点分别提高37.23%、22.47%和18.43%,有效规避了机身共振现象。仿真实验证明,提出的有限元仿真与实验结合的减振分析思〖BHDWG8,WK10YQ,DK1*2,WK1*2D〗〖XCMWL.TIF;%129%129〗听语音 聊科研与作者互动 路及优化设计方法,可为旋翼无人机减振设计提供参考依据。     

A balancing problem for mixed model assembly lines with a paced moving conveyor

We state a balancing problem for mixed model assembly lines with a paced moving conveyor as: Given the daily assembling sequence of the models, the tasks of each model, the precedence relations among the tasks, and the operations parameters of the assembly line, assign the tasks of the models to the workstations so as to minimize the total overload time. Several characteristics of the problem are investigated. A line‐balancing heuristic is proposed based on a lower bound of the total overload time. A practical procedure is provided for estimating the deviation of any given line‐balance solution from the theoretical optimum. Numerical examples are given to illustrate the methodology. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2004.     

An adaptive forecasting algorithm and inventory policy for products with short life cycles

Products with short life cycles are becoming increasingly common in many industries, such as the personal computer (PC) and mobile phone industries. Traditional forecasting methods and inventory policies can be inappropriate for forecasting demand and managing inventory for a product with a short life cycle because they usually do not take into account the characteristics of the product life cycle. This can result in inaccurate forecasts, high inventory cost, and low service levels. Besides, many forecasting methods require a significant demand history, which is available only after the product has been sold for some time. In this paper, we present an adaptive forecasting algorithm with two characteristics. First, it uses structural knowledge on the product life cycle to model the demand. Second, it combines knowledge on the demand that is available prior to the launch of the product with actual demand data that become available after the introduction of the product to generate and update demand forecasts. Based on the forecasting algorithm, we develop an optimal inventory policy. Since the optimal inventory policy is computationally expensive, we propose three heuristics and show in a numerical study that one of the heuristics generates near‐optimal solutions. The evaluation of our approach is based on demand data from a leading PC manufacturer in the United States, where the forecasting algorithm has been implemented. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2004.     

Warranty costs: An age‐dependent failure/repair model

An age‐dependent repair model is proposed. The notion of the “calendar age” of the product and the degree of repair are used to define the virtual age of the product. The virtual failure rate function and the virtual hazard function related to the lifetime of the product are discussed. Under a nonhomogeneous Poisson process scenario the expected warranty costs for repairable products associated with linear pro‐rata, nonrenewing free replacement and renewing free replacement warranties are evaluated. Illustration of the results is given by numerical and graphical examples. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2004.     

On the uncapacitated K‐commodity network design problem with zero flow‐costs

Extending Sastry's result on the uncapacitated two‐commodity network design problem, we completely characterize the optimal solution of the uncapacitated K‐commodity network design problem with zero flow costs for the case when K = 3. By solving a set of shortest‐path problems on related graphs, we show that the optimal solutions can be found in O(n³) time when K = 3, where n is the number of nodes in the network. The algorithm depends on identifying a list of “basic patterns”; the number of basic patterns grows exponentially with K. We also show that the uncapacitated K‐commodity network design problem can be solved in O(n³) time for general K if K is fixed; otherwise, the time for solving the problem is exponential. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2004     

基于进化搜索策略的并行子空间设计算法

并行子空间设计是一种有效的多学科设计优化算法,但其搜索策略存在两点不足:一是寻找全局最优解能力有限,二是计算复杂。为弥补上述不足,将遗传算法应用到CSD算法中,提出了一种基于进化搜索策略的CSD算法。介绍了该算法的设计流程,应用该算法对一测试问题进行了优化,取得了满意结果。