Optimal inventory and dynamic admission policies for a retailer of seasonal products with affiliate programs and drop‐shipping

This article investigates the optimal inventory and admission policies for a “Clicks‐and‐Bricks” retailer of seasonal products that, in addition to selling through its own physical and online stores, also sells through third‐party websites by means of affiliate programs. Through postings on partners' webpages, an affiliate program allows a retailer to attract customers who would otherwise be missed. However, this retailer needs to pay a commission for each sale that originates from the website operators participating in the program. The retailer may also refer online orders to other sources (such as distributors and manufacturers) for fulfillment through a drop‐shipping agreement and thus earns commissions. This would be an option when, for example, the inventories at the physical stores were running low. Therefore, during the selling horizon, the retailer needs to dynamically control the opening/closing of affiliate programs and decide on the fulfillment option for online orders. On the basis of a discrete‐time dynamic programming model, the optimal admission policy of the retailer is investigated in this paper, and the structural properties of the revenue function are characterized. Numerical examples are given to show the revenue impact of optimal admission control. The optimal initial stocking decisions at the physical stores are also studied. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 2009     

空军雷达兵部队计量保障信息管理系统平台设计

在现有指挥自动化网络的基础上,针对雷达装备计量保障信息化建设,提出构建空军雷达兵部队计量保障信息管理系统平台,给出平台的体系结构、数据库设计和系统平台的工作流程等初步设计方案,为提高雷达装备计量保障信息化管理提供了前期的技术预研.经实际应用证明,该设计方案能够较好的解决雷达装备计量保障资源信息管理和计量保障计划的自动生成等问题.     

基于FC-AE-1553B通信协议的网络仿真

对于FC-AE-155B通信协议与光纤通道(FC)技术的应用进行了研究.针对航空电子设备的通信要求进行了独立的建模,验证了FC-AE-1553B协议在航电系统中的传输能力.实验搭建了对立的FC仲裁网络并按照FC-AE-1553B协议制定了包模型,建立了节点模型、链路模型.按照协议要求制作了进程模型设计了有限状态机.在OPNET仿真环境下对航电设备的FC网络进行了构建,测评了基于FC网络的FC-AE-1553通信协议的应用能力.     

基于Agent技术的战术互联网动态频谱管理系统

动态频谱管理是提升战术互联网作战效能的主要手段之一.首先分析了战术互联网以及动态频率管理工作特点的基础上,设计了一种基于Agent技术的动态频谱管理系统,并详细介绍了动态频谱管理的实现方法.     

突发事件处置经验对军队战时管理的启示

战时管理是关系作战全局的基础性工作,是保持和释放战斗力的重要举措,是确保军队高度集中统一、能打胜仗的重要支撑。有效提升军队战时管理能力是现代战争中部队管理工作亟待研究的重要课题。本文梳理了近期我国突发事件处置中的经验教训,从战时支前物资管理、战时人力资源管理及战时舆情信息管控三个方面提出：战时支前物资管理应完善机制、改造模式、畅通网络;战时人力资源管理应紧贴任务实际、突出岗才一致、彰显精简程序;战时舆情信息管控应统一机构、正确导向、纯洁队伍、严管舆论等措施,以期给未来战时管理决策提供可选方案,实现管理服务作战,保障打赢之目的。     

Revenue sharing contracts in a supply chain with uncontractible actions

We consider a supplier–customer relationship where the customer faces a typical Newsvendor problem of determining perishable capacity to meet uncertain demand. The customer outsources a critical, demand‐enhancing service to an outside supplier, who receives a fixed share of the revenue from the customer. Given such a linear sharing contract, the customer chooses capacity and the service supplier chooses service effort level before demand is realized. We consider the two cases when these decisions are made simultaneously (simultaneous game) or sequentially (sequential game). For each game, we analyze how the equilibrium solutions vary with the parameters of the problem. We show that in the equilibrium, it is possible that either the customer's capacity increases or the service supplier's effort level decreases when the supplier receives a larger share of the revenue. We also show that given the same sharing contract, the sequential game always induces a higher capacity and more effort. For the case of additive effort effect and uniform demand distribution, we consider the customer's problem of designing the optimal contract with or without a fixed payment in the contract, and obtain sensitivity results on how the optimal contract depends on the problem parameters. For the case of fixed payment, it is optimal to allocate more revenue to the supplier to induce more service effort when the profit margin is higher, the cost of effort is lower, effort is more effective in stimulating demand, the variability of demand is smaller or the supplier makes the first move in the sequential game. For the case of no fixed payment, however, it is optimal to allocate more revenue to the supplier when the variability of demand is larger or its mean is smaller. Numerical examples are analyzed to validate the sensitivity results for the case of normal demand distribution and to provide more managerial insights. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2008     

A refined deterministic linear program for the network revenue management problem with customer choice behavior

We present a new deterministic linear program for the network revenue management problem with customer choice behavior. The novel aspect of our linear program is that it naturally generates bid prices that depend on how much time is left until the time of departure. Similar to the earlier linear program used by van Ryzin and Liu (2004), the optimal objective value of our linear program provides an upper bound on the optimal total expected revenue over the planning horizon. In addition, the percent gap between the optimal objective value of our linear program and the optimal total expected revenue diminishes in an asymptotic regime where the leg capacities and the number of time periods in the planning horizon increase linearly with the same rate. Computational experiments indicate that when compared with the linear program that appears in the existing literature, our linear program can provide tighter upper bounds, and the control policies that are based on our linear program can obtain higher total expected revenues. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2008     

Scheduling and due‐date quotation in a make‐to‐order supply chain

We consider a manufacturer, served by a single supplier, who has to quote due dates to arriving customers in a make‐to‐order production environment. The manufacturer is penalized for long lead times and for missing due dates. To meet due dates, the manufacturer has to obtain components from a supplier. We model this manufacturer and supplier as a two‐machine flow shop, consider several variations of this problem, and design effective due‐date quotation and scheduling algorithms for centralized and decentralized versions of the model. We perform extensive computational testing to assess the effectiveness of our algorithms and to compare the centralized and decentralized models to quantify the value of centralized control in a make‐to‐order supply chain. Since complete information exchange and centralized control is not always practical or cost‐effective, we explore the value of partial information exchange for this system. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2008     

Nash bargaining over allocations in inventory pooling contracts

When facing uncertain demand, several firms may consider pooling their inventories leading to the emergence of two key contractual issues. How much should each produce or purchase for inventory purposes? How should inventory be allocated when shortages occur to some of the firms? Previously, if the allocations issue was considered, it was undertaken through evaluation of the consequences of an arbitrary priority scheme. We consider both these issues within a Nash bargaining solution (NBS) cooperative framework. The firms may not be risk neutral, hence a nontransferable utility bargaining game is defined. Thus the physical pooling mechanism itself must benefit the firms, even without any monetary transfers. The firms may be asymmetric in the sense of having different unit production costs and unit revenues. Our assumption with respect to shortage allocation is that a firm not suffering from a shortfall, will not be affected by any of the other firms' shortages. For two risk neutral firms, the NBS is shown to award priority on all inventory produced to the firm with higher ratio of unit revenue to unit production cost. Nevertheless, the arrangement is also beneficial for the other firm contributing to the total production. We provide examples of Uniform and Bernoulli demand distributions, for which the problem can be solved analytically. For firms with constant absolute risk aversion, the agreement may not award priority to any firm. Analytically solvable examples allow additional insights, e.g. that higher risk aversion can, for some problem parameters, cause an increase in the sum of quantities produced, which is not the case in a single newsvendor setting. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2008     

Technical note: Reexamination of all‐or‐none inspection policies in a supply chain with endogenous product quality

This note studies the optimal inspection policies in a supply chain in which a manufacturer purchases components from a supplier but has no direct control of component quality. The manufacturer uses an inspection policy and a damage cost sharing contract to encourage the supplier to improve the component quality. We find that all‐or‐none inspection policies are optimal for the manufacturer if the supplier's share of the damage cost is larger than a threshold; otherwise, the manufacturer should inspect a fraction of a batch. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2008