Today, supply chain finance is a very important topic. Traditional supply chains rely on banks to support the related financing activities and services. With the emergence of blockchain technology, ...more and more companies in different industries have considered using it to support supply chain finance. In this paper, we study supply chain financing problems in supply chains selling fashionable products. Modeling under the standard newsvendor problem setting with a single manufacturer and a single retailer employing a revenue sharing contract, we develop analytical models for both the traditional and blockchain-supported supply chains. We derive the optimal contracting and quantity decisions in each supply chain with Nash bargaining between the manufacturer and retailer. We analytically show how the revenue sharing contract can coordinate both types of supply chains. We then compare the optimal systems performances between the two supply chains. We prove that the blockchain-supported supply chain incurs a lower level of operational risk than the traditional supply chain. We have shown that if the service fees by banks are sufficiently high, adopting blockchain technology is a mean-risk dominating policy which brings a higher expected profit and a lower risk for the supply chain and its members. For robustness checking, we examine other commonly seen supply chain contracts and alternative risk measures, and analytically reveal that the results remain valid.
•Using “bring-service-near-your-home” mobile service operations under the corona-virus- outbreak.•Showing how the government can provide the subsidy to help.•Discussing how technologies can ...help.•Exploring the optimal safety technology investment problem.
The corona virus (COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2) outbreak has created serious disruptions to many business operations. Among them, many service operations, which require customers to travel and visit a place indoor, become almost infeasible to run in a crowded city like Hong Kong. Motivated by a recent reported real case on an innovative service operation in Hong Kong, we build analytical models to explore how logistics and technologies together can transform the “static service operations” to become the “bring-service-near-your-home” mobile service operations. We also highlight how the government may provide the subsidy to support the above mentioned mobile service operation (MSO) to make it financially viable. We specifically show that the government may adopt the fixed-cost-subsidy (FCS) scheme, operations-cost-subsidy (OCS) scheme or safety-technology-support (STS) scheme to help. We further uncover that the OCS scheme would bring a larger consumer surplus than the FCS scheme and is hence more preferable. In the extended models, we first study the case when service fee cannot be changed because of corona virus outbreak (CVO). We then explore the feasibility of adopting MSO in the long run as a financially self-sustainable service operation and derive the analytical conditions under which MSO is a win-win business model for both the service provider and consumers. Finally, we study the optimal safety technology investment problem.
Big Data Analytics in Operations Management Choi, Tsan‐Ming; Wallace, Stein W.; Wang, Yulan
Production and operations management,
October 2018, Letnik:
27, Številka:
10
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Big data analytics is critical in modern operations management (OM). In this study, we first explore the existing big data‐related analytics techniques, and identify their strengths, weaknesses as ...well as major functionalities. We then discuss various big data analytics strategies to overcome the respective computational and data challenges. After that, we examine the literature and reveal how different types of big data methods (techniques, strategies, and architectures) can be applied to different OM topical areas, namely forecasting, inventory management, revenue management and marketing, transportation management, supply chain management, and risk analysis. We also investigate via case studies the real‐world applications of big data analytics in top branded enterprises. Finally, we conclude the study with a discussion of future research.
•Study blockchain-technology-supported platform for diamond authentication and certification.•Explore the values of blockchain-technology-supported platforms.•Uncover that the shopping convenience ...utility offered by traditional retailers is critical.•Show that reducing the laser marking cost is beneficial to all parties.
The blockchain technology is very useful in many industries. One current application is on diamond authentication and certification, which is important in many luxury supply chains. In this paper, we explore different consumer utility driven operations models and highlight the values of blockchain technology supported (BTS) platforms for diamond authentication and certification. We build models and analytically examine both the traditional retail network operations (Model R) and the BTS selling platform (Model PL). We further extend the analysis to study the case with the BTS certification platform (Model BCR). We reveal the conditions under which one model outperforms the others. In particular, we note that the shopping convenience utility offered by the traditional retailers is a critical factor determining which model is the best. Finally, for the BTS platform operations, we study the blockchain-technology-based diamond authentication and certification (BDAC) cost and reveal that reducing it is beneficial to all parties in the luxury supply chain.
The last decade has witnessed a sharp rising trend in environmental awareness and protection in China. Green supply chain management (GSCM) has been regarded as an effective tool in China for ...mitigating the negative effects that firms have on the environment. However, the extent to which GSCM pressures influence GSCM practices, and whether and how GSCM practices affect GSCM performance are topics that remain under‐explored. Combining Institutional Theory, Resource‐Based View (RBV) Theory, and the literature on GSCM, our study sheds light on the relationship among GSCM pressures, practices, and performance under the moderating effect of quick response (QR) technology. Using statistical analysis of the collected data and case studies from companies in China, we establish several results. First, among different GSCM pressures, market and export pressures have significant impacts on GSCM practices, whereas cost pressure does not influence GSCM practices significantly. Second, internal improvement practice exerts a significant impact on GSCM practices, while external improvement practice negatively affects positive economic performance. In addition, ecology practice has significantly influenced environmental, positive economic, and operational performance. Third, QR technology suppresses the positive effect between internal improvement practice and negative economic performance. Two real cases from Huawei (telecommunications technologies) and Beijing Benz Automotive (automobile manufacturing) are conducted to verify the findings and generate additional insights. Our findings contribute to the literature and provide guidance to help governments and companies establish effective and innovative GSCM policies.
Risk has long been an important aspect of logistics. This is especially prominent right now when the whole world is affected by COVID-19. Transportation Research Part E (TRE), as a well-established ...journal in logistics and transportation, has also featured many important studies related to “risk”. In this editorial article, we examine risk analysis research in logistics systems with special relevance to COVID-19. We first discuss the topics of risk analysis in logistics by reviewing some prior publications in TRE. We also introduce the related TRE special issues, including published ones and an on-going one. We then propose a research agenda, which hopefully can help inspire more innovative risk analysis research to overcome challenges in logistics during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
To retain old customers and promote sales, firms offer trade‐in programs in which consumers bring in an old product and receive a trade‐in rebate when buying a new one. However, after buying the new ...product, the consumer who has traded in (the “trade‐in consumer”) may return the new product and claim a refund for it if she/he is not satisfied with it. In this situation, under a full‐trade‐in‐return (FTR) policy, trade‐in consumers receive a generous refund that includes a trade‐in‐rebate for them to redeem if they purchase again in future. Alternatively, some firms have a partial‐trade‐in‐return (PTR) policy under which trade‐in consumers who return a newly purchased product only receive a refund for the amount of money they paid (without including the trade‐in‐rebate). In this study, we build stylized analytical models to explore the optimal choice of a trade‐in‐return policy. We find that there is no difference to the firm between an FTR and a PTR policy when no trade‐in consumers keep unsatisfactory new products. In the case of a relatively medium residual value of the used product, FTR is always the better choice for the firm. When some trade‐in consumers keep unsatisfactory new products, we show that FTR (PTR) is the better choice when the used product's durability is sufficiently low (high). We also show that the firm may not reduce its trade‐in rebate when the “average new product satisfaction rate” of trade‐in consumers increases. In the extended models, we find that, the firm is more likely to prefer PTR to FTR under the online–offline dual‐channel retailing mode, but tends to prefer FTR to PTR when there is a competitive secondhand market, and should make the same optimal trade‐in return policy when there are two selling periods.
E‐commerce supply chains and their members face risks from cyber‐attacks. Consumers who purchase goods online also risk having their private information stolen. Thus, businesses are investing to ...improve cyber‐security at a nontrivial cost. In this paper, we conduct a Stackelberg game‐theoretical analysis. In the basic model, we first derive the equilibrium pricing and cyber‐security level decisions in the e‐commerce supply chain. Based on real‐world practices, we then explore whether governments should impose cyber‐security penalty schemes. Our findings show that when the government is characterized by having sufficiently high emphasis on consumer surplus, implementing the penalty scheme is beneficial to social welfare. Then, we extend the analysis to examine how adopting systems security enhancing technologies (such as blockchain) will affect the government's choice of imposing penalty. We uncover that when it is beneficial to have government's penalty scheme, the technology benefit‐to‐cost ratio is a critical factor that governs whether the optimal penalty will be lower or higher with the adoption of systems security enhancing technologies. To generate more insights, we conduct further analyses for various extended modeling cases (e.g., with alliance, competition, and the defense‐level dependent penalty scheme) and find that our main results remain robust. One important insight we have uncovered in this study is that imposing government penalty schemes on cyber‐security issues may do more harm than good; while once it is beneficial to implement, the government should charge the heaviest possible fine. This finding may explain why in the real world, governments basically always adopt a polarized strategy, that is, either do not impose penalty or impose a super heavy penalty, on cyber‐security issues.
ABSTRACT
Platform operations are very common in the sharing economy. Nowadays, retailers can sell the end‐of‐season product leftovers to platforms which offer product rental services to the market. ...Motivated by this observed industrial practice, we build stylized supply chain models to explore the platform supported supply chain operations. We uncover that the presence of the platform creates the “triple marginalization” problem in which supply chain coordination cannot be achieved even if the manufacturer is willing to supply at cost using the wholesale pricing contract. We show how the markdown sponsor (MS) contract can deal with the triple marginalization problem and achieve supply chain coordination. However, we illustrate that a moral hazard problem, in which the retailer has incentive to overclaim the amount of markdown sponsor, arises. We reveal that the moral hazard problem brings a loss to the manufacturer, an immoral gain for the retailer, and there is no impact on the platform and consumers. We analytically derive the impact of moral hazard (which means the loss to the manufacturer, and the gain for the retailer) and find that it relates to the markdown sponsor rate, as well as the degree of overclaiming. To overcome the moral hazard problem under MS contract, we propose measures such as the adoption of blockchain technology, and “discounted” markdown sponsor contract, to help. We also explore the implementations of other contracts to overcome the moral hazard, like virtual buyback with inventory reallocation contract, and wholesale pricing contract with side payments.
Today, blockchain technology and its cryptocurrency function are widely proposed as a tool for supply chain finance and some companies already accept cryptocurrency in business transactions. However, ...supply chain agents may possess different risk attitudes towards the use of cryptocurrency. In this paper, we build stylised analytical three-echelon supply chain models to examine this issue. To be specific, we consider the case in which supply chain agents can be risk neutral, risk averse or risk prone towards the volatile value of cryptocurrency. We model these risk attitudes by using the mean-risk theory. In the main models, comparing the benefits of supply chain agents as well as consumers under the cases with and without blockchain and cryptocurrency, we analytically reveal the impacts brought by risk attitudes of supply chain agents in different echelons. We find the conditions under which implementing blockchain with cryptocurrency achieves an all-win situation for all supply chain agents and consumers. Critical factors which affect the adoption of blockchain with cryptocurrency in supply chains are further investigated. In the extended models, we consider two cases: (i) The case in which "not using blockchain with cryptocurrency" has an impact on consumer utility; and (ii) there is a chain-to-chain competition. We uncover that the main conclusion remains valid and new insights are also derived.
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