Optimal control policies for an inventory system with commitment lead time

We consider a firm which faces a Poisson customer demand and uses a base‐stock policy to replenish its inventories from an outside supplier with a fixed lead time. The firm can use a preorder strategy which allows the customers to place their orders before their actual need. The time from a customer's order until the date a product is actually needed is called commitment lead time. The firm pays a commitment cost which is strictly increasing and convex in the length of the commitment lead time. For such a system, we prove the optimality of bang‐bang and all‐or‐nothing policies for the commitment lead time and the base‐stock policy, respectively. We study the case where the commitment cost is linear in the length of the commitment lead time in detail. We show that there exists a unit commitment cost threshold which dictates the optimality of either a buy‐to‐order (BTO) or a buy‐to‐stock strategy. The unit commitment cost threshold is increasing in the unit holding and backordering costs and decreasing in the mean lead time demand. We determine the conditions on the unit commitment cost for profitability of the BTO strategy and study the case with a compound Poisson customer demand.     

Buy now,pay later: American military intervention and the strategic cost paradox

This paper explores the notion that US efforts to evade the political costs of war paradoxically contribute to the subsequent exacerbation of costs over time. Leaders seek to purchase political capital in the short term by limiting the costs and requirements of military operations, but in doing so cause strategic and political liabilities to mount in the long run. While identification of such behaviour is not new, insufficient attention has been devoted to explaining its causes, dynamics, and manifestations in relation to key decisions on and in war. Evidence derived from studies of recent American discretionary campaigns is analysed to advance an argument with respect to this pattern of self-defeating strategic behaviour.     

Adjacency‐based local top‐down search method for finding maximal efficient faces in multiple objective linear programming

It is well‐known that the efficient set of a multiobjective linear programming (MOLP) problem can be represented as a union of the maximal efficient faces of the feasible region. In this paper, we propose a method for finding all maximal efficient faces for an MOLP. The new method is based on a condition that all efficient vertices (short for the efficient extreme points and rays) for the MOLP have been found and it relies on the adjacency, affine independence and convexity results of efficient sets. The method uses a local top‐down search strategy to determine maximal efficient faces incident to every efficient vertex for finding maximal efficient faces of an MOLP problem. To our knowledge, the proposed method is the first top‐down search method that uses the adjacency property of the efficient set to find all maximal efficient faces. We discuss this and other advantages and disadvantages of the algorithm. We also discuss some computational experience we have had with our computer code for implementing the algorithm. This computational experience involved solving several MOLP problems with the code.     

The practice of strategy: South African defence in stasis

The article concerns the strategy development processes of the South African Department of Defence in South Africa. It intends to identify the probable causes of the observed failure of the South African National Defence Force to develop appropriate departmental policy and military strategy. Military strategy comprises force development, force employment, force deployment and the coordination of these elements in pursuit of national, grand-strategic objectives. (See Dennis M. Drew and Donald M. Snow, Making Twenty-first Century Strategy: An Introduction to Modern National Security Processes and Problems Montgomery, AL: Air University Press, Maxwell Air Force Base, November 2006, 103). Of these four constructs, the article concerns itself only with the first two. The article analyses two complementary approaches to strategy formation: a resource-driven, inside-out model and an interests-driven, outside-in method. The article concludes that the Department is preoccupied with the inside-out method to the lasting detriment of the declared strategic intent of the defence policy.     

军民融合背景下军工企业多元化发展战略研究

冷战结束后,欧美多数军工企业在军转民的过程中采取多元化的经营战略,壮大企业规模并寻求进一步的发展。随着我国军民融合战略的深入实施,军工企业不再是封闭独立的单一军品生产基地,而是顺时应势逐步实现军品和民品同步多元化发展的战略转型。通过分析我国军工企业军转民的历史进程与国际经验,结合多元化战略的特点,考察军工企业在军转民过程中实施多元化战略的动因,构建军工企业多元化战略的选择函数。本文认为,军工企业选择多元化战略应考虑企业自身实际情况,积极响应国家政策,培育核心竞争力;同时,军转民过程作为军民融合深度发展的重要一环,会促使军工企业往多元化的方向发展,而多元化战略的实施也会加快军民融合深度发展的进程。     

Contracts and coordination: Supply chains with uncertain demand and supply

Considering a supply chain with a supplier subject to yield uncertainty selling to a retailer facing stochastic demand, we find that commonly studied classical coordination contracts fail to coordinate both the supplier's production and the retailer's procurement decisions and achieve efficient performance. First, we study the vendor managed inventory (VMI) partnership. We find that a consignment VMI partnership coupled with a production cost subsidy achieves perfect coordination and a win‐win outcome; it is simple to implement and arbitrarily allocates total channel profit. The production cost subsidy optimally chosen through Nash bargaining analysis depends on the bargaining power of the supplier and the retailer. Further, motivated by the practice that sometimes the retailer and the supplier can arrange a “late order,” we also analyze the behavior of an advance‐purchase discount (APD) contract. We find that an APD with a revenue sharing contract can efficiently coordinate the supply chain as well as achieve flexible profit allocation. Finally, we explore which coordination contract works better for the supplier vs. the retailer. It is interesting to observe that Nash bargaining solutions for the two coordination contracts are equivalent. We further provide recommendations on the applications of these contracts. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 63: 305–319, 2016     

基于优先权的分布式网络设备智能轮询策略研究

针对大型网络其地域分布广,监测对象较多,监测周期过长,实时性较差且管理流量负载较大等问题,提出一种分布式网络设备智能轮询策略。在域内,针对轮询周期调整问题,通过构造体现管理者意志的评判矩阵和求解反映数据特征的DFT(离散傅立叶变换)确定轮询优先级和轮询周期取值范围,提出了基于变化率的轮询周期调整算法;在域间,通过触发和查询实现对特殊事件的采集。最后进行了仿真,表明该策略能够在减轻网络负载的同时,准确刻画网络的状态。     

关于颠覆性技术发展的理性认知

随着美国揭开第三次"抵消战略"重点发展对象的面纱,研发"颠覆性技术"已成为主要军事大国获得技术优势的手段。当前世界新一轮科技革命、产业革命、军事革命交织并行,给颠覆性技术提供了难得的良好机遇。但当我们看见颠覆性技术引领时代新型武器装备潮流发展的同时,也应理性看待其背后潜藏的风险。通过概述总结颠覆性技术研究现状,分析其推动的科技内生性变革,从本质上对其进行理性认知。研究表明,发展颠覆性技术必须积极作为,谨慎对待。     

校园可持续建筑实践——后勤工程学院绿色建筑示范楼设计

基于生态优先原则的可持续建筑贯彻了环保、节能、健康及舒适等理念,后勤工程学院绿色建筑示范楼设计充分体现了建筑可持续性目标,设计建造的全过程都考虑室内外环境因素及生态影响,结合工种的划分,从环境生态化补偿、建筑结构体系优化、室内环境控制、能源系统平衡、水资源循环利用及智能化监控等6个方面,由外到内对建筑进行可持续设计策略和技术的整合,充分发挥了技术集成的优势。     

随舰备件需求分析中维修策略问题

分析了面向任务保障性工程理论指导下的舰船随舰备件配置问题,就最大、最小两种维修策略下随舰备件配置问题进行了研究,给出了面向任务的随舰备件需求分析仿真模型框架,结合算倒,研究了最大维修策略与最小维修策略的适用时机:在任务确定且任务结构函数明确条件下,应采用最小维修策略;否则采用最大维修策略.