Push or Pull? Perishable Products with Freshness-Keeping Effort

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (01) ◽  
pp. 1950008
Author(s):  
Lianmin Zhang ◽  
Lei Guan ◽  
Yong-Hong Kuo ◽  
Houcai Shen

With the gradual improvement of living standards, people’s consumption levels and habits are changing. One notable fact is that the demand for fresh products is growing steadily. Accordingly, fresh-product preservation and logistics distribution also require higher standards. Based on the practice of fresh domestic transport and preservation, for which the producer and the distributor are responsible, this paper discusses their optimal decisions taking into account the freshness-keeping effort of the distributor. Our main contributions include the derivations of the optimal decisions of the order quantity and the freshness-keeping effort in both the pull and push models, which are common in practice but have not been studied in the literature. Our analytical models lead to the result that, all other settings being the same, the distributor always puts a greater effort into preserving the product quality in the pull model than in the push model. This phenomenon results in a greater distributor’s order quantity and producer’s shipping quantity in the pull model. We also conduct a comprehensive numerical comparison of the effects of different modulating factors, including the price and the proportion and variation of surviving quantity, in these two settings. We find that the profits of the participants and the supply chain are always larger in the pull model, which indicates that the pull model is a better choice for the supply chain.

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Honglin Yang ◽  
Ya Yu ◽  
Yong Zha ◽  
Jijun Yuan

In real supply chain, a capital-constrained retailer has two typical payment choices: the up-front payment to receive a high discount price or the delayed payment to reduce capital pressure. We compare with the efficiency of optimal decisions of different participants, that is, supplier, retailer, and bank, under both types of payments based on a game equilibrium analysis. It shows that under the equilibrium, the delayed payment leads to a greater optimal order quantity from the retailer compared to the up-front payment and, thus, improves the whole benefit of the supply chain. The numerical simulation for the random demand following a uniform distribution further verifies our findings. This study provides novel evidence that a dominant supplier who actively offers trade credit helps enhance the whole efficiency of a supply chain.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bo Wang ◽  
De-Chun Huang ◽  
Hai-yan Li ◽  
Ji-Yong Ding

Two financing modes can be considered for manufacturer’s production capital constrained: RPFM (retailer’s prepayment financing mode) and PCFM (procurement contract financing mode). Under the RPFM, the retailer places order in advance for a discount price and makes prepayment; manufacturer is able to finance from a bank as production quantity cannot satisfy the second-order quantity of retailer. By contrast, manufacturers make financing from commercial banks based on the procurement contract with upstream supplier under the PCFM. Taking into account the relation between production volumes with the manufacturer’s own capital and retailer’s order quantity, the optimal production and financing decision model for manufacturer under these two financing modes are built. Moreover, the profits of the manufacturer, the retailer, and the supply chain are compared and discussed. Results show that both of the two modes can create new value and profit for the supply chain with capital constraint and achieve optimal production under “newsvendor” mode; the supply chain has the better performance under the RPFM than that achieved under the PCFM. Also, under the RPFM, the manufacturer’s production and the profit of the whole supply chain would be increased when the manufacturer makes the second financing. Similar conclusion is reached under the PCFM. Finally, numerical study was given to demonstrate the conclusions.


Author(s):  
Sumon Sarkar ◽  
B. C. Giri

The paper investigates a two-echelon production-delivery supply chain model for products with stochastic demand and backorder-lost sales mixture under trade-credit financing. The manufacturer delivers the retailer's order quantity in a number of equal-sized shipments. The replenishment lead-time is such that it can be crashed to a minimum duration at an additional cost that can be treated as an investment. Shortages in the retailer's inventory are allowed to occur and are partially backlogged with a backlogging rate dependent on customer's waiting time. Moreover, the manufacturer offers the retailer a credit period which is less than the reorder interval. The model is formulated to find the optimal solutions for order quantity, safety factor, lead time, and the number of shipments from the manufacturer to the retailer in light of both distribution-free and known distribution functions. Two solution algorithms are provided to obtain the optimal decisions for the integrated system. The effects of controllable lead time, backorder rate and trade-credit financing on optimal decisions are illustrated through numerical examples.


Author(s):  
Bayi Cheng ◽  
Ruofan Li ◽  
Xiaoxi Zhu ◽  
Mi Zhou ◽  
Xiongfei Cao

In this paper, we analyze the optimal order-quantity decisions in a supply chain with mass customization (MC) manufacturer and overconfident retailer. First, we consider a newsvendor model in which an unbiased retailer sells mass customized products. The retailer needs to make order quantity decisions before the selling season. Meanwhile, the supplier is a mass customization manufacturer and implements modular production. The supply process is uncertain, as the real quantity the retailer received is the order quantity multiplied by a random yield rate. Second, two overconfident models are considered and theorems are proposed. In the first model, the behavioral bias of overconfidence only affects the retailer's judgment of variance of market demand. In the second model, the behavior bias of overconfidence affects not only the retailer's cognition of the variance of market demand, but also his cognition of the expectation of market demand. In addition, the relationship between the optimal decisions and the modularity level is obtained. Finally, we provide managerial insights for the decision makers of the retailers and the manufacturers on order quantity and modularity level, respectively.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 698 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rongfang Yan ◽  
Dejun Kou ◽  
Bin Lu

In this paper, we investigate inventory and order strategies of a two-echelon supply chain, which is composed of two unreliable suppliers that are subject to random disruption. We develop the gross weighted profit benchmark model and the service level constrained model of the supply chain, respectively. We derive the retailer’s optimal order quantity and analyze the retailer’ optimal order policy and also obtain the analytical closed-form solutions. In addition, some numerical examples are provided to illustrate the effect of disruption time, disruption probability and fill rate on the optimal decisions and expected profit.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 6425
Author(s):  
Quanxi Li ◽  
Haowei Zhang ◽  
Kailing Liu

In closed-loop supply chains (CLSC), manufacturers, retailers, and recyclers perform their duties. Due to the asymmetry of information among enterprises, it is difficult for them to maximize efficiency and profits. To maximize the efficiency and profit of the CLSC, this study establishes five cooperation models of CLSC under the government‘s reward–penalty mechanism. We make decisions on wholesale prices, retail prices, transfer payment prices, and recovery rates relying on the Stackelberg game method and compare the optimal decisions. This paper analyzes the impact of the government reward-penalty mechanism on optimal decisions and how members in CLSC choose partners. We find that the government’s reward-penalty mechanism can effectively increase the recycling rate of used products and the total profit of the closed-loop supply chain. According to the calculation results of the models, under the government’s reward-penalty mechanism, the cooperation can improve the CLSC’s used products recycling capacity and profitability. In a supply chain, the more members participate in the cooperation, the higher profit the CLSC obtain. However, the cooperation mode of all members may lead to monopoly, which is not approved by government and customers.


2012 ◽  
Vol 36 (8) ◽  
pp. 3826-3835 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abraham Mendoza ◽  
José A. Ventura

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rui Wang ◽  
Shiji Song ◽  
Cheng Wu

This paper studies an option contract for coordinating a supply chain comprising one risk-neutral supplier and two risk-averse retailers engaged in promotion competition in the selling season. For a given option contract, in decentralized case, each risk-averse retailer decides the optimal order quantity and the promotion policy by maximizing the conditional value-at-risk of profit. Based on the retailers’ decision, the supplier derives the optimal production policy by maximizing expected profit. In centralized case, the optimal decision of the supply chain system is obtained. Based on the decentralized and centralized decision, we find the coordination conditions of the supply chain system, which can optimize the supply chain system profit and make the profits of the supply chain members achieve Pareto optimum. As for the subchain, we also find the coordination conditions, which generalize the results of the supply chain with one supplier and one retailer. Our analysis and numerical experiments show that there exists a unique Nash equilibrium between two retailers, and the optimal order quantity of each retailer increases (decreases) with its own (competitor’s) promotion level.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Chongfeng Lan ◽  
Jianfeng Zhu

New product presale is a strategic behavior of manufacturers to transfer inventory risks to consumers. The research purpose of this paper is to examine the presale discount, inventory, and service level decisions in an e-commerce supply chain, where the first period is the presale period and the second is the selling period for the new product. First, consumers were divided into two types—those who are risk averse and those who are not. Then, considering different presale discounts applied for new products, three presale strategy models were discussed: no-presale strategy, presale strategy with a moderate discount, and complete presale strategy, and the optimal decisions of e-commerce supply chain members were obtained under different valuations of the new product by consumers. Finally, the effects of the correlation coefficient between the numbers of the two types of consumers, the loss aversion degree of consumers, and the marginal profit in the sales period on the optimal discounted price and the maximum expected profit were analyzed. The conclusions of this article show that the presale strategy is not always optimal but depends on the parameters of the market and the type of consumers. For example, when the correlation coefficient between the two types of consumers is high, it is more profitable for the suppliers if they choose the presale strategy with a moderate discount, while e-commerce platforms tend to adopt the no-presale strategy. The optimal discounted price in the complete presale case is not necessarily lower than that in the moderately discounted presale case. If the marginal profit is high in the normal sales period or consumers are less averse to losses, suppliers are more likely to adopt the complete presale strategy. The research conclusions provide some theoretical reference for companies in the development of new product presale strategies in the e-commerce supply chain.


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