A vendor managed inventory supply chain with deteriorating raw materials and products

Fast deteriorating raw materials such as raw milk, fruit and vegetables are commonly used to produce slowly deteriorating finished products such as milk powders, cheeses, and pastas. This paper studies a Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) type supply chain where the manufacturing vendor decides how to manage the system-wide inventories of its fast deteriorating raw material and its slowly deteriorating product. The decision variables are a common replenishment cycle of the product and the replenishment frequency of the raw material. We assume the deteriorating rates are known constants and every retailer's demand is deterministic. We develop an integrated model to calculate the total inventory and deterioration cost for such a system. We prove the convexity of the cost functions, and based on this a golden search algorithm is developed to find the optimal solution of the model. Our numerical results show that the deteriorating rate of the product may increase the total cost by more than 40% compared to the zero-deteriorating rate, while the deteriorating raw material has less impact on the total cost (commonly less than 5% in our numerical examples). This indicates that more attention should be paid to the product than the raw material. Further, an increase in the number of retailers can make the replenishment frequency of the raw material increase significantly but the common replenishment cycle of the product decreases a little. This indicates that adding a new retailer would not be felt strongly by the other retailers but would be felt by the supplier of the raw material.     

The New Home Economics at Colombia and Chicago

When Jacob Mincer and Gary Becker started the New Home Economics (NHE) at Columbia University in the early 1960s, they expanded on the field of family and consumption economics that Hazel Kirk and Margaret Reid began in the early 1920s. This paper studies forty years of household economics, the decisions that household members make regarding any allocation of resources. These decisions may regard consumption, labor supply, transportation, fertility, or health. A review of the history of the NHE shows that Jacob Mincer's original contribution tends to be underestimated. This paper also argues that the growth of the NHE benefited from the concentration of talent at Columbia, organizational support, the diversity of a student body that included many talented women, the ideological commitments that students, many of them married, had for the study of home production, a departmental policy de-emphasizing gender-related politics, and relatively high levels of civility.     

Challenges in service network expansion: An application in donated breastmilk banking in South Africa

Neonatal infections are the leading cause for neonatal deaths in developing countries, resulting in more than 1.5 million infant fatalities annually. The most effective prevention against neonatal infections is exclusive breastfeeding. However, reasons such as maternal death during birth, maternal illnesses such as HIV and TB-meningitis, and lack of rooming-in facilities prevent the infant to be breastfed by his/her mother. One way to mitigate these infections is by supplying pasteurized donor-expressed breastmilk. In this paper, we consider the network expansion of the donated breastmilk distribution supply chain in South Africa. As with the distribution of most public sector and humanitarian relief goods and services, the transportation of donated breastmilk is hampered by the inherent uncertainty in the environment, and by the fact that in addition to efficient usage of resources, distribution should be made in an equitable manner. We incorporate uncertainty into our models by means of multiple scenarios, which are determined based on different assumptions about population size, HIV prevalence, and status of public health in the country, income, and education. We consider various equity-based objectives and propose rounding-based heuristics to solve these. We focus on two delivery schemes; one which uses out-and-back transportation, and one that makes multiple stops on the delivery route. Using computational experiments, we analyze the trade-offs between the objectives as well as the effects of various public health policies, network expansion budget, and assumptions on supply and demand. We also describe the teaching materials resulting from this paper, which include a case study, a supply/demand estimation tool, and an interactive decision support tool.     

The selection of contracts in supply chains: An empirical analysis

This paper seeks to empirically identify the key drivers for firms in selecting a contract in a supply chain by investigating their performance, supply chain orientation, and supply chain integration. A conceptual model is drawn up based on the existing literature in supply chain coordination contracts, performance, supply chain orientation, and supply chain integration and tested on a large sample of European firms. Multiple and multinomial logistic regression models allow for estimating the relationships between these variables. Our results demonstrate that the selection of contracts and the probability of their adoption depend on several combinations of firms' performance, supply chain orientation, and integration. Overall, the research provides an empirical contribution to the literature on coordination with contracts, which turns out to be mainly game theory based.     

Supply chain environmental R&D cooperation and product performance: Exploring the network dynamics of positional embeddedness

Companies increasingly need to work with their partners to address sustainability issues, but benefits from environmental R&D cooperation can be limited by the complexity of its management. This paper examines how the interplay between dyadic and network relationships can contribute to increase the success of environmental R&D cooperation. Using secondary data, we examine whether the positional embeddedness in the supply network structure of partners engaged in environmental R&D cooperation amplifies the effects of cooperation on product performance. Non-monotonic effects of environmental R&D cooperation and embeddedness are also tested. The results indicate that the positional embeddedness of partners triggered by multiple sourcing strategy amplifies the effects of environmental R&D cooperation on product environmental performance. The interaction effects become however insignificant in the presence of increasing complexity and excessive environmental R&D cooperation.     

项目导向型供应链跨组织合作行为激励机制

在假定项目型组织平等合作的基础上,运用委托-代理理论和博弈论,纳入总承包商给予专业分包商基于监控信号的奖惩结构,构建了基于监控信号的项目导向型供应链跨组织合作激励模型,并与传统激励模型进行比较,通过数据模拟与模型算例,研究了监控信号对激励契约设计的影响。研究表明：通过引入监控信号,总承包商可以收集到更多有关专业分包商行为选择的信息,通过调整对专业分包商的奖励和惩罚力度,可以促进专业分包商采取合作行为,降低其机会主义行为,也可以降低总承包商对专业分包商激励的盲目性。     

基于供应链优化的第三方物流企业物流金融模式分析

物流金融是第三方物流企业的创新服务之一,也是供应链的金融服务创新产品,其蓬勃发展解决了企业的融资难问题,降低了供应链的运作成本,提高了供应链的资金运作率,也给银行降低了运作风险。本文具体阐述和分析了几种主要的物流金融模式,希望能够在供应链一体化的基础上,给我国第三方物流企业的物流金融服务运作提供一点参考意见。     

啤酒游戏在高职《供应链管理》教学中的应用

在经济全球化背景下,供应链结构越来越复杂,供应链管理在缺乏有效管理的情况下,会产生牛鞭效应,啤酒游戏可以让学生深刻体会这种需求变异放大效应。啤酒游戏的优化,结合了高职学生的学情特点,提出“1＋2＋4”模式,简化了角色数目,设置批发商与零售商的专用游戏卡片,设计了各角色专用表格,让整个游戏更易于操作。啤酒游戏的优化与应用对高职供应链管理教学意义重大,是教学模式的一种全新的突破,更适合高职学生对实践课程的要求。     

全球视角下农产品价格上涨的原因探析

2006—2008年,以我国粮油为代表的主要农产品价格大幅上涨。在全球化背景下．农产品价格上涨是由下述三个因素共同影响推动而成的：美元贬值和石油价格上涨;需求强烈、供给增加缓慢的国际农产品供求状况;国内“供弱需强”的供求关系和政府保护的“两难悖论”。此外．国内其他因素如经济持续快速增长、流动性过剩、人民币升值等也间接影响着农产品价格的波动程度。     

P2B平台的运营模式与风险控制研究

P2B网贷由P2P衍生创新而来,它有安全性高、收益稳定的优点,但是也存在不少风险.我国P2B网贷存在着信用风险、网络安全风险、担保风险、政策法律风险和监管风险.针对以上风险,提出了P2B网贷的风险控制措施,主要从P2B网络平台方面、行业组织方面、政府方面来控制风险.