The impact of animal welfare regulations on firms' product offerings: Humane or organic product?

Increased public concerns about animal welfare have spurred new regulations to improve animals' treatment and living conditions. We study how these regulations affect firms' product offerings, prices, and profits. We consider two competing animal agriculture supply chains, each consisting of a supplier and a buyer. New regulations require firms to choose between offering humane or organic products, which are differentiated by animals' living conditions. We find that consumers' growing awareness of animal welfare encourages firms to offer organic products, which require the highest standards for animals' living conditions. We also show that tightening humane product standards and loosening organic product standards encourage firms to offer organic products—but with distinct pricing implications. The former leads to higher retail prices whereas the latter may lower retail prices. Depending on costs and consumers' awareness of animal welfare, a humane product may be priced higher or lower than an organic product. Furthermore, we provide conditions under which a regulator should offer a unit-cost or an investment cost subsidy to improve social welfare. We show that subsidies can encourage firms to change from offering humane to organic products, or vice versa, to enhance total social welfare.     

防空导弹总体设计方法的新发展——弹族化设计

研究了防空导弹一种新的总体设计思想———弹族化设计 ,论述了防空导弹弹族的设计与研制采用预先计划的产品改进P3 I(Pre PlannedProductImprovement)系统方法的必要性与有效性 ,通过对一个覆盖全空域、包含有 3种导弹的防空导弹弹族进行一体化优化设计 ,其结果证明了弹族化设计方法的可行性和优越性     

Designing and pricing menus of extended warranty contracts

Extended warranties provide “piece of mind” to a consumer in that product failures which occur after the base warranty expires are rectified at little or no cost. They also provide an additional source of revenue for manufacturers or third‐party providers, such as retailers or insurance providers, and help cultivate consumer loyalty. In this article, we analyze a number of extended warranty contracts which differ in design, including restrictions on deferrals and renewals. With the use of dynamic programming, we compute the optimal strategy for a consumer with perfect information and determine the optimal pricing policy for the provider given the consumer's risk characterization. We also provide insight into when different contracts should be issued. Finally, we illustrate how profits can be dramatically increased by offering menus of warranty contracts, as opposed to stand alone contracts, with the use of integer programming. Surprisingly, risk‐taking consumers provide the greatest benefit to offering menus. These insights can help a company develop a comprehensive warranty planning strategy for given products or product lines. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 2009     

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.     

采用向量内积的并行相关算法

针对软件接收机相关器计算的实时性问题,通过分析扩频信号的接收过程,建立一种基于向量内积的并行相关信号接收模型。利用图形处理单元中大量的浮点运算单元进行矩阵与向量运算,并行计算各通道相关值,提高了信号相关运算的实时性。仿真验证结果表明,利用基于GPU的向量内积软件并行相关算法计算25 MHz采样率时长1 ms的信号相关值,25个通道共150个相关运算耗时967μs,与CPU上基于数学核心函数库的实现相比速度约提高了61.4倍,能够实现宽带扩频信号软件实时相关接收。     

卫星导航接收机延迟锁定环鉴相器有限字长分析

码相位鉴别器作为延迟锁定环的主要组成部分,其性能直接影响了接收机伪码的跟踪精度。针对输入信号有限字长效应对鉴相器性能的影响,提出一种新的基于信号统计特性的分析方法,分析了归一化早迟幅度鉴相器输入信号有限字长对输出性能的影响。理论分析和仿真结果表明,字长效应在输入信号高信噪比下比低信噪比时明显,随着信噪比的增加,由有限字长导致的伪码跟踪精度损失将增加,而当输入信号采用4bit以上的量化时,字长效应对伪码跟踪性能的影响将可忽略。该结论可用于指导接收机低功耗小型化设计。     

An adaptive forecasting algorithm and inventory policy for products with short life cycles

Products with short life cycles are becoming increasingly common in many industries, such as the personal computer (PC) and mobile phone industries. Traditional forecasting methods and inventory policies can be inappropriate for forecasting demand and managing inventory for a product with a short life cycle because they usually do not take into account the characteristics of the product life cycle. This can result in inaccurate forecasts, high inventory cost, and low service levels. Besides, many forecasting methods require a significant demand history, which is available only after the product has been sold for some time. In this paper, we present an adaptive forecasting algorithm with two characteristics. First, it uses structural knowledge on the product life cycle to model the demand. Second, it combines knowledge on the demand that is available prior to the launch of the product with actual demand data that become available after the introduction of the product to generate and update demand forecasts. Based on the forecasting algorithm, we develop an optimal inventory policy. Since the optimal inventory policy is computationally expensive, we propose three heuristics and show in a numerical study that one of the heuristics generates near‐optimal solutions. The evaluation of our approach is based on demand data from a leading PC manufacturer in the United States, where the forecasting algorithm has been implemented. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2004.     

Optimal pricing for a short life‐cycle product when customer price‐sensitivity varies over time

Technology products often experience a life‐cycle demand pattern that resembles a diffusion process, with weak demand in the beginning and the end of the life cycle and high demand intensity in between. The customer price‐sensitivity also changes over the life cycle of the product. We study the prespecified pricing decision for a product that exhibits such demand characteristics. In particular, we determine the optimal set of discrete prices and the times to switch from one price to another, when a limited number of price changes are allowed. Our study shows that the optimal prices and switching times show interesting patterns that depend on the product's demand pattern and the change in the customers' price sensitivity over the life cycle of the product. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2012     

基于模糊商空间理论的产品粒化过程分析

模块形成与划分是展开模块化设计及大规模定制生产的关键环节。为了进一步扩展产品模块化的定量分析手段,提出了一种基于模糊商空间理论的产品粒化方法。通过引入粒度计算,将基于相关性分析的产品模块化过程转化为基于粒度计算的产品粒化过程,并应用模糊商空间理论对其进行了分析,给出了基于归一化距离和综合模糊相似关系的产品粒度空间构建方法,建立了基于两阶段优化算法的最佳产品粒层确定流程,进而得到了最优模块划分方案,最后以某堆垛机货叉机构为例对该方法进行了有效性验证。此方法为产品模块聚类与优化提供了一种新的数值分析和评价手段,应用结果表明该方法具有一定的可行性和合理性,能够有效指导产品模块化过程的实施。     

并行工程关键使能技术及其发展趋势

介绍了并行工程(ConcurrentEngineering,简称CE)的定义、基本原则、组成、驱动力和要素等,概要介绍了CE的部分关键使能技术。基于CE的理论研究与应用实践,给出实施CE的基本模式并进一步设想了CE的发展趋势。