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     

目标网络分层描述与自修复机制研究?

针对目标网络分层建模与自修复机制问题展开研究。首先建立了分层次的作战目标网络模型,在此基础上提出六种维度的指标以评价作战目标网络在攻击前后能力的变化情况;其次,从预警网络层、火力网络层、指控网络层分析探索作战目标体系在遭受攻击后的最优自修复策略;最后,通过模拟攻击实验仿真分析上述自修复机制的可行性。实验结果表明该目标网络的自修复机制相比传统方法,能够更好地发挥剩余节点的作战效能。     

基于感知信息共享的C2网络特征分析

指挥控制（C2,Commandand Control）关系网络连接数的增加会增强指控节点之间的信息共享,但也会增加节点信息处理和交换负荷,如果达到一定程度,则会造成节点本身的“信息过载”从而影响C2网络性能。对此,通过研究C2网络在两种不同处理方式下的共享感知信息平均提交时间,用网络节点响应时间的均方差表征一个C2网络的共享态势感知时间的一致性,最后对两种不同结构C2网络特征参数的计算,说明了网络连接增加会导致信息提交时间的延长,但一致性会增强。     

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.     

Supply chain coordination with product line design and a revenue sharing scheme

Many manufacturers sell their products through retailers and share the revenue with those retailers. Given this phenomenon, we build a stylized model to investigate the role of revenue sharing schemes in supply chain coordination and product variety decisions. In our model, a monopolistic manufacturer serves two segments of consumers, which are distinguished by their willingness to pay for quality. In the scenario with exogenous revenue sharing ratios, when the potential gain from serving the low segment is substantial (e.g., the low‐segment consumers' willingness to pay is high enough or the low segment takes a large enough proportion of the market), the retailer is better off abandoning the revenue sharing scheme. Moreover, when the potential gain from serving the low (high) segment is substantial enough, the manufacturer finds it profitable to offer a single product. Furthermore, when revenue sharing ratios are endogenous, we divide our analysis into two cases, depending on the methods of cooperation. When revenue sharing ratios are negotiated at the very beginning, the decentralized supply chain causes further distortion. This suggests that the central premise of revenue sharing—the coordination of supply chains—may be undermined if supply chain parties meticulously bargain over it.     

区块链在分队战术协同中的应用构想

从战术分队角度出发,探讨了区块链技术在作战实体之间的信息交互及智能协同方面的应用设想,分析了战术分队信息交互的相关技术及面临的挑战,阐述了区块链在未来战术分队指挥体系构建中的发展构想。     

Untruthful probabilistic demand forecasts in vendor‐managed revenue‐sharing contracts: Coordinating the chain

Vendor‐managed revenue‐sharing arrangements are common in the newspaper and other industries. Under such arrangements, the supplier decides on the level of inventory while the retailer effectively operates under consignment, sharing the sales revenue with his supplier. We consider the case where the supplier is unable to predict demand, and must base her decisions on the retailer‐supplied probabilistic forecast for demand. We show that the retailer's best choice of a distribution to report to his supplier will not be the true demand distribution, but instead will be a degenerate distribution that surprisingly induces the supplier to provide the system‐optimal inventory quantity. (To maintain credibility, the retailer's reports of daily sales must then be consistent with his supplied forecast.) This result is robust under nonlinear production costs and nonlinear revenue‐sharing. However, if the retailer does not know the supplier's production cost, the forecast “improves” and could even be truthful. That, however, causes the supplier's order quantity to be suboptimal for the overall system. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2007     

Production to order and off‐line inspection when the production process is partially observable

This study combines inspection and lot‐sizing decisions. The issue is whether to INSPECT another unit or PRODUCE a new lot. A unit produced is either conforming or defective. Demand need to be satisfied in full, by conforming units only. The production process may switch from a “good” state to a “bad” state, at constant rate. The proportion of conforming units in the good state is higher than in the bad state. The true state is unobservable and can only be inferred from the quality of units inspected. We thus update, after each inspection, the probability that the unit, next candidate for inspection, was produced while the production process was in the good state. That “good‐state‐probability” is the basis for our decision to INSPECT or PRODUCE. We prove that the optimal policy has a simple form: INSPECT only if the good‐state‐probability exceeds a control limit. We provide a methodology to calculate the optimal lot size and the expected costs associated with INSPECT and PRODUCE. Surprisingly, we find that the control limit, as a function of the demand (and other problem parameters) is not necessarily monotone. Also, counter to intuition, it is possible that the optimal action is PRODUCE, after revealing a conforming unit. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2007     

The correlates of transatlantic burden sharing: revising the agenda for theoretical and policy analysis

While recent work has attempted to update the research agenda for transatiantic defense burden-sharing, there remain significant gaps between the public choice defense economics literature and the security studies literature. The presence of such a gap is unfortunate, because defense spending choices are likely shaped by factors identified by the public choice literature, as well as the strategic and cultural variables that the security studies literature tends to focus on, as well as domestic macroeconomic factors. The independent variables identified in recent qualitative literature are extremely useful analytically, and, fortunately, they have reasonable proxies in available quantitative data, which enables scholars to study them across large groups of countries and many years. This article builds upon such work to synthesize the most notable of the factors identified in the current literature, and offers some common analytical ground that will benefit both scholars and practitioners..     

高技术装备维修知识共享

将知识管理的思想引入到装备维修中,认为装备维修组织与高技术装备生产厂家之间的知识共享是提升高技术装备维修能力的重要因素。通过建立知识共享模型,对装备维修组织与高技术装备生产厂家知识共享过程进行了分析,得出知识总量螺旋上升的结果。在此基础上进行博弈分析,运用数学方法,找出主导高技术装备维修知识共享活动的关键因素,并结合实际,研究应对方法,推动装备维修知识共享,促进装备维修组织知识创新,从而提高装备维修能力。