Switching costs,dynamic uncertainty,and buyer–seller relationships

We analyze strategic relationships between buyers and sellers in markets with switching costs and dynamic uncertainty by investigating the scenario wherein a representative buyer trades with two foreign sellers located in the same foreign country. We show that, under exchange rate uncertainty, switching costs may lead to switching equilibria where both sellers co‐exist in the market with the buyer, or no‐switching equilibria where either seller captures the market. The presence of exchange rate uncertainty facilitates competition by allowing the sellers to co‐exist in the market with the buyer. However, if the level of uncertainty is beyond a threshold, the only viable equilibria are those where one of the sellers captures the market. Further, depending on the level of exchange rate uncertainty and the sellers' variable costs, switching costs may either raise or lower the level of prices in long‐term contracts between the buyer and the sellers. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2007     

动态旋流器湍流流场的模拟研究

采用雷诺应力模型对动态旋流器湍流流场进行模拟.模拟结果与文献实验数据基本吻合,证明该模型的正确性.其中,轴向和切向速度的模拟结果和实际结果非常接近;径向速度的模拟将有助于旋流器结构及性能的分析.所建立的模型和所使用的计算方法为深入探讨动态水力旋流器的流场特性、分离机理及结构优化设计提供了一条有效的途径.     

状态空间表达下控制系统的稳态误差

经典控制理论对系统稳态误差的讨论从传递函数入手,重点是对系统开环传递函数的研究,当系统的输入是任意函数时,引入动态误差系数方法来研究稳态误差,但是当输入具有高阶导数时,动态误差系数将很难得到.现代控制理论中的状态空间表达下求系统的稳态误差很好地解决了这个问题.利用矩阵之间的运算来表示动态误差系数,并且可以得到任意输入下的稳态误差值,在线性定常系统下的推导结果还可以适用于线性时变系统,具有一定的普遍性.     

一种齿轮箱振动控制方法

从机械结构的振动控制理论出发 ,提出了一种齿轮箱振动控制方法 ,研究并讨论几种齿轮箱箱体以及齿轮本体的结构参数对动态特性的影响 ,其结论可以为齿轮箱的振动设计提供参考依据     

目标选择优化模型及算法

提出了可用于大威力武器火力分配的目标选择优化模型及算法。内容包括：问题的数学描述、问题的等价变换与分解、问题求解的动态规划算法和不同算法的计算次数比较。     

Synchronizing pricing and replenishment to serve forward-looking customers

We incorporate strategic customer waiting behavior in the classical economic order quantity (EOQ) setting. The seller determines not only the timing and quantities of the inventory replenishment, but also the selling prices over time. While similar ideas of market segmentation and intertemporal price discrimination can be carried over from the travel industries to other industries, inventory replenishment considerations common to retail outlets and supermarkets introduce additional features to the optimal pricing scheme. Specifically, our study provides concrete managerial recommendations that are against the conventional wisdom on “everyday low price” (EDLP) versus “high-low pricing” (Hi-Lo). We show that in the presence of inventory costs and strategic customers, Hi-Lo instead of EDLP is optimal when customers have homogeneous valuations. This result suggests that because of strategic customer behavior, the seller obtains a new source of flexibility—the ability to induce customers to wait—which always leads to a strictly positive increase of the seller's profit. Moreover, the optimal inventory policy may feature a dry period with zero inventory, but this period does not necessarily result in a loss of sales as customers strategically wait for the upcoming promotion. Furthermore, we derive the solution approach for the optimal policy under heterogeneous customer valuation setting. Under the optimal policy, the replenishments and price promotions are synchronized, and the seller adopts high selling prices when the inventory level is low and plans a discontinuous price discount at the replenishment point when inventory is the highest.     

Stein–Chen approximation and error bounds for order fill rates in assemble‐to‐order systems

Assemble‐to‐order (ATO) is an important operational strategy for manufacturing firms to achieve quick response to customer orders while keeping low finished good inventories. This strategy has been successfully used not only by manufacturers (e.g., Dell, IBM) but also by retailers (e.g., Amazon.com). The evaluation of order‐based performance is known to be an important but difficult task, and the existing literature has been mainly focused on stochastic comparison to obtain performance bounds. In this article, we develop an extremely simple Stein–Chen approximation as well as its error‐bound for order‐based fill rate for a multiproduct multicomponent ATO system with random leadtimes to replenish components. This approximation gives an expression for order‐based fill rate in terms of component‐based fill rates. The approximation has the property that the higher the component replenishment leadtime variability, the smaller the error bound. The result allows an operations manager to analyze the improvement in order‐based fill rates when the base‐stock level for any component changes. Numerical studies demonstrate that the approximation performs well, especially when the demand processes of different components are highly correlated; when the components have high base‐stock levels; or when the component replenishment leadtimes have high variability. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2012     

The value of information sharing in a two‐stage supply chain with production capacity constraints

We consider a simple two‐stage supply chain with a single retailer facing i.i.d. demand and a single manufacturer with finite production capacity. We analyze the value of information sharing between the retailer and the manufacturer over a finite time horizon. In our model, the manufacturer receives demand information from the retailer even during time periods in which the retailer does not order. To analyze the impact of information sharing, we consider the following three strategies: (1) the retailer does not share demand information with the manufacturer; (2) the retailer does share demand information with the manufacturer and the manufacturer uses the optimal policy to schedule production; (3) the retailer shares demand information with the manufacturer and the manufacturer uses a greedy policy to schedule production. These strategies allow us to study the impact of information sharing on the manufacturer as a function of the production capacity, and the frequency and timing in which demand information is shared. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2003     

近炸引信预制破片弹射击效能仿真

提出了利用动态精度试验数据,预测近炸引信预制破片弹射击效能的思路,建立了动态精度预测射击效能的数学模型,在较接近实战条件下模拟计算了近炸引信预制破片弹的射击效能.计算结果与实弹射击结果接近,表明该方法能有效预测近炸引信预制破片弹的射击效能,能为射击试验提供高可信度的验前信息,有助于优化射击试验方案的制定,减少试验样本量,降低试验消耗.     

Scheduling stochastic jobs with asymmetric earliness and tardiness penalties

We consider a stochastic counterpart of the well-known earliness-tardiness scheduling problem with a common due date, in which n stochastic jobs are to be processed on a single machine. The processing times of the jobs are independent and normally distributed random variables with known means and known variances that are proportional to the means. The due dates of the jobs are random variables following a common probability distribution. The objective is to minimize the expectation of a weighted combination of the earliness penalty, the tardiness penalty, and the flow-time penalty. One of our main results is that an optimal sequence for the problem must be V-shaped with respect to the mean processing times. Other characterizations of the optimal solution are also established. Two algorithms are proposed, which can generate optimal or near-optimal solutions in pseudopolynomial time. The proposed algorithms are also extended to problems where processing times do not satisfy the assumption in the model above, and are evaluated when processing times follow different probability distributions, including general normal (without the proportional relation between variances and means), uniform, Laplace, and exponential. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 44, 531–557, 1997.