Study on decision making of fresh food supplier selection

As the first process of the supply chain, fresh food supplier is the source of food safety, and also the key factor of the whole fresh food supply chain competition. AHP is used to establish the fresh food supplier selection index system. IT is used to calculate the weight of each evaluation index. Through the establishment of a comprehensive evaluation model, decision maker will comprehensively evaluate the strength of fresh food suppliers.

Multidimensional analysis model of agricultural product supply chain competition based on mean fuzzy

Efficient and reliable fresh agricultural products supply chain is the key to meet the demand of consumers for fresh agricultural products, and also the guarantee for suppliers to realize their economic benefits. Therefore, a multi-dimensional analysis model of agricultural products supply chain competition based on fuzzy mean value is proposed. Firstly, the information distribution model of multi-dimensional analysis of agricultural product supply chain competition is proposed. On this basis, the multi-dimensional analysis information scheduling fusion of agricultural product supply chain competition is processed. Then, the application of mean value fuzzy in agricultural product supply chain is analyzed. According to the identification module of agricultural product information code, the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation model of supply chain and the mean fuzzy analytic hierarchy process, the competition of agricultural product supply chain is established Dimension analysis model. The experimental results show that the performance score of agricultural product supply chain is higher, the accuracy of supply chain information diagnosis is higher, and the clustering of agricultural product supply chain information diagnosis is better.

Optimization of competitive supply chains with retailers’ horizontal cooperation and consumers’ green preference

With the wider recognition of the concept of environmental protection and sustainable development, more and more manufacturers have begun to implement green manufacturing strategies. However, green development is a gradual process, and the coexistence of ordinary and green products is common. This paper examines the competition between ordinary products and green ones based on supply chains, and discusses the impact of retailers’ horizontal cooperation on pricing, greenness, market demand, profit, and other related decisions and results. Model solutions and numerical experiments have shown that consumers’ green preference (CGP) has a positive impact on the results of green products and negative effects on those of ordinary ones; however, the impact of competition intensity (CI) is more complex, and the trend tends to change if it exceeds a certain critical value. In general, cooperation encourages retailers to raise prices and make manufacturers lower wholesale prices, but the retail and wholesale prices of green products are always higher than the corresponding prices of ordinary ones. Market demand can be reduced due to cooperation, but it is conducive to strengthening green products’ greenness. However, if CI exceeds a certain threshold, the greenness will be weakened by cooperation. Both retailers can benefit from cooperation easily and they always reach a win-win situation, but manufacturers suffer badly as a result. Nevertheless, when CI is weak, cooperation will bring a greater profit improvement to the whole chain of ordinary products; in this case, if a retailer is willing to compensate for a manufacturer’s profit loss and help it benefit from cooperation, the manufacturer will encourage the retailer to cooperate horizontally with the green retailer, but the green chain will be seriously damaged. When CI is strong, the greenness of green products is not obvious enough, and cooperation can bring some chances to achieve a win-win situation for two chains; if the green retailer can obtain a larger share from cooperation under this scenario, it can also enable its manufacturer to obtain compensation and change the profit increment from negative to positive. From an overall perspective, when CI is very weak or very strong, horizontal cooperation is conducive to improving the profit of the entire supply chain competition system, but when CI is relatively flat, independent operation for each chain is more advantageous; if the competition status is stable and unchanged, independent competition will be superior to horizontal cooperation.

Tripartite game models in a dual-channel supply chain: competition and cooperation

This paper considers tripartite games in a dual-channel supply chain which involves a manufacturer, an offline retailer and an online retailer. Both competition and cooperation issues are analyzed. In the competition model, a Stackelberg game between the manufacturer and two retailers and a Bertrand game between two retailers occur simultaneously. It is shown that the channel which attracts more consumers’ purchase preference is charged a higher wholesale price and it meanwhile declares a higher sales price. In the presence of revenue sharing, cooperation issues between the three participants are studied and the change of the revenue of each participant is analyzed when partial cooperation exists. Further, the definition of the optimum two-player coalition is proposed. We demonstrate that the channel which attracts more preference of consumers is definitely in the optimum coalition. The structure of the two-player coalition is analyzed. Finally, under revenue sharing and cost apportionments, the change of each participant’s profit is examined.

Strategic Inventories Under Supply Chain Competition

Problem definition: We consider the effects of strategic inventory (SI) in the presence of chain-to-chain competition in a two-period model. Academic/practical relevance: Established findings suggest that SI may alleviate double marginalization and improve the efficiency of a decentralized distribution channel. However, no studies consider the role of SI under chain-to-chain competition. Methodology: We build a two-period model consisting of two competing supply chains, each with an upstream manufacturer and an exclusive retailer. The retailers compete on either price or quantity. We characterize the firms’ strategies under the concept of perfect Bayesian equilibrium. We consider cases where contracts are either observable or unobservable across supply chains. Results: (1) SI still exists under chain-to-chain competition. Retailers may carry more inventory when the competition becomes fiercer, which further intensifies the supply chain competition. (2) Different from the existing findings, SI may backfire and hurt all firms. Interestingly, firms may benefit from a higher inventory holding cost. (3) Under supply chain competition, the prisoner’s dilemma can arise if competition intensity is intermediate; in other words, manufacturers are better off without strategic inventory, and yet they cannot help allowing strategic inventory, which is the unique equilibrium. Managerial implications: Despite its appeal among firms of a single supply chain, the role of SI is altered or even reversed by chain-to-chain competition. Conventional wisdom on SI should be applied with caution.

Strategic Integration Decision under Supply Chain Competition in the Presence of Online Channel

This study explores the pricing decisions of substitutable products for two competing supply chains in the presence of an online channel. Each supply chain consisting of a single manufacturer and an exclusive retailer and one of the manufacturers distributes products through the online channel. We examine optimal decisions under five scenarios to explore how the strategic cooperation between two manufacturers at the upstream horizontal level or with the retailer at the vertical level affects product pricing decisions and the performance of two supply chains? The results reveal that decisions for cooperation with competing manufacturers and opening an online channel are correlated. In the absence of an online channel, cooperation with their respective retailer can lead to a higher supply chain profit. However, if a manufacturer opens an online channel, then cooperation with competing manufacturers can lead to a higher supply chain profit. Under the vertical integration, total supply chain profit might be lower compared to a scenario where members in each supply chain remain independent. Consumers also need to pay more for products.

Supply Chain Competition: A Market Game Approach

We study supply chains where multiple suppliers sell to multiple retailers through a wholesale market. In practice, we often observe that both suppliers and retailers tend to influence the wholesale market price that retailers pay to suppliers. However, existing models of supply chain competition do not capture retailers’ influence on the wholesale price (i.e., buyer power) and show that the wholesale price and the order quantity per retailer do not change with the number of retailers. To overcome this limitation, we develop a competition model based on the market game mechanism in which the wholesale price is determined based on both suppliers’ and retailers’ decisions. When taking into account retailers’ buyer power, we obtain the result that is consistent with the observed practice: As the number of retailers increases, each retailer’s buyer power decreases, and each retailer is willing to pay more for her order, so the wholesale price increases. In this case, supply chain expansion to include more retailers (or suppliers) turns out to be more beneficial in terms of supply chain efficiency than what the prior literature shows without considering buyer power. Finally, we analyze the integration of two local supply chains and show that although the profit of the integrated supply chain is greater than the sum of total profits of local supply chains, integration may reduce the total profit of firms in a retailer-oriented supply chain that has more retailers than suppliers. This paper was accepted by Charles Corbett, operations management.

The Optimal Production Decision of Competing Supply Chains When Considering Green Degree: A Game-Theoretic Approach

Nowadays, the green supply chain has become an exciting concept in academic societies. This paper focuses on the optimal production decisions of two competing supply chains from the perspective of green degree. The manufacturers in each supply chain have two options—producing a green product or a non-green product. Game theory is applied to study four decision scenarios, which are derived from the difference in the products of the two supply chains. This study investigates the influence of inter-supply-chain competition on the wholesale price, green degree, and profits of the supply chain members. The results indicate that the inter-supply-chain competition has a negative correlation with the wholesale price. The inter-supply-chain competition has a significant impact on green degree in the four decision scenarios. In addition, green products are not always the dominant strategy of manufacturers. Both the competitors’ product decisions and the degree of inter-supply-chain competition should be considered. Finally, weak inter-supply-chain competition is beneficial to the leader supply chain, while strong competition is beneficial to the follower supply chain.