The impact of demand uncertainty on product line design under endogenous substitution

The existing product line design literature devotes little attention to the effect of demand uncertainty. Due to demand uncertainty, the supply‐demand mismatch is inevitable which leads to different degrees of lost sales depending on the configuration of product lines. In this article, we adopt a stylized two‐segment setup with uncertain market sizes and illustrate the interplay between two effects: risk pooling that mitigates the impact of demand uncertainty and market segmentation that facilitates consumer differentiation. Compared to downward substitution, inducing bidirectional substitution through product line decisions including quality levels and prices can yield greater risk pooling effects. However, we show that the additional benefit from the risk pooling effect cannot compensate for the reduced market segmentation effect. We demonstrate that the presence of demand uncertainty can reduce the benefit of market segmentation and therefore the length of product lines in terms of the difference between products. We also propose three heuristics that separate product line and production decisions; each of these heuristics corresponds to one particular form of demand substitution. Our numerical studies indicate that the best of the three heuristics yields performance that is close to optimality. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 62: 143–157, 2015     

Technical note – operational statistics: Properties and the risk‐averse case

Consider a repeated newsvendor problem for managing the inventory of perishable products. When the parameter of the demand distribution is unknown, it has been shown that the traditional separated estimation and optimization (SEO) approach could lead to suboptimality. To address this issue, an integrated approach called operational statistics (OS) was developed by Chu et al., Oper Res Lett 36 (2008) 110–116. In this note, we first study the properties of this approach and compare its performance with that of the traditional SEO approach. It is shown that OS is consistent and superior to SEO. The benefit of using OS is larger when the demand variability is higher. We then generalize OS to the risk‐averse case under the conditional value‐at‐risk (CVaR) criterion. To model risk from both demand sampling and future demand uncertainty, we introduce a new criterion, called the total CVaR, and find the optimal OS under this new criterion. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 62: 206–214, 2015     

Optimal pricing and scheduling control of product shipping

In this article, we seek to understand how a capacity‐constrained seller optimally prices and schedules product shipping to customers who are heterogeneous on willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to wait (WTW). The capacity‐constrained seller does not observe each customer's WTP and WTW and knows only the aggregate distributions of WTP and WTW. The seller's problem is modeled as an M/M/N_s queueing model with multiclass customers and multidimensional information screening. We contribute to the literature by providing an optimal and efficient algorithm. Furthermore, we numerically find that customers with a larger waiting cost enjoys a higher scheduling priority, but customers with higher valuation do not necessarily get a higher scheduling priority. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 62: 215–227, 2015     

Transformations of node‐balanced routing problems

This article describes a polynomial transformation for a class of unit‐demand vehicle routing problems, named node‐balanced routing problems (BRP), where the number of nodes on each route is restricted to be in an interval such that the workload across the routes is balanced. The transformation is general in that it can be applied to single or multiple depot, homogeneous or heterogeneous fleet BRPs, and any combination thereof. At the heart of the procedure lies transforming the BRP into a generalized traveling salesman problem (TSP), which can then be transformed into a TSP. The transformed graph exhibits special properties which can be exploited to significantly reduce the number of arcs, and used to construct a formulation for the resulting TSP that amounts to no more than that of a constrained assignment problem. Computational results on a number of instances are presented. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 62: 370–387, 2015     

航天测控软件共用技术研究与实现

软件共用是航天测控软件的发展趋势,分析了航天测控软件共用的可行性,并选取火箭遥测软件作为原型验证系统,提出了解决方案和设计方法,采用ICE中间件和构件技术实现了该原型验证系统,经测试验证,分布式部署的原型验证软件各项指标满足测控任务软件的技术要求,对航天测控软件共用研究具有重要的借鉴和指导意义。     

A note on the forecast performance of temporal aggregation

Earlier research on the effects of nonoverlapping temporal aggregation on demand forecasting showed the benefits associated with such an approach under a stationary AR(1) or MA(1) processes for decision making conducted at the disaggregate level. The first objective of this note is to extend those important results by considering a more general underlying demand process. The second objective is to assess the conditions under which aggregation may be a preferable approach for improving decision making at the aggregate level as well. We confirm the validity of previous results under more general conditions, and we show the increased benefit resulting from forecasting by temporal aggregation at lower frequency time units. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 61: 489–500, 2014     

[AXB,GXH]=[C,D]对称最小二乘解及最佳逼近的极小残差法

构造迭代算法研究了矩阵方程[AXB,GXH] = [C,D] ,证明了该算法可经有限步得到方程的对称最小二乘解及其最佳逼近,并给出了相关性质.最后,通过数值例子表明该算法是有效的.     

多元线性模型的广义逆诊断问题

在实际问题中,经常需要考虑多个因变量对多个自变量的相互依赖关系,但在运算过程中经常会碰到奇异矩阵不能求逆的问题.通过推导任意2矩阵的差的广义逆,解决了这一问题,继而得出多元线性模型的参数估计,最后推出数据删除模型异常点的判断依据.     

Lot streaming with supplier–manufacturer coordination

Lot splitting refers to breaking a production lot into smaller sublots during production. Coordinating lot splitting decisions across multiple stages of a production process is a challenging task. Traditional lot splitting and lot streaming models implicitly assume that the entire system is operated and owned by the same firm, or there exists a coordinator who controls the operation of all machines in the system. In this paper, we consider the situation where the machines in a multiple‐stage production process are owned and managed by different companies. Every item in a given production lot has to go through the processing by the supplier's machine, followed by the manufacturer's machine, and so on. We develop and analyze coordination mechanisms that enable different parties in the supply chain to coordinate their lot splitting decisions so as to achieve a systemwide optimum. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2004     

基于最优投影与形态学滤波技术的引信安全性软件识别算法

以数字化图像处理与识别技术为基础,利用最优投影及形态学滤波技术,根据某型惯性保险引信X光图像中所反映的零部件位置、灰度和形态等特征,建立保险钢珠和保险簧状态的识别算法,应用C语言进行算法编程,应用C＋＋Builder完成程序界面设计,实现惯性保险引信安全性在无损状态下的自动识别．