Price discount based on early order commitment in a single manufacturer-multiple retailer supply chain

Early order commitment (EOC) is a strategy for supply chain coordination, wherein the retailer commits to purchasing from a manufacturer a fixed order quantity a few periods in advance of the regular delivery lead time. In this paper, we formulate and analyze the EOC strategy for a decentralized, two-level supply chain consisting of a single manufacturer and multiple retailers, who face external demands that follow an autocorrelated AR(1) process over time. We characterize the special structure of the optimal solutions for the retailers' EOC periods to minimize the total supply chain cost and discuss the impact of demand parameters and cost parameters. We then develop and compare three solution approaches to solving the optimal solution. Using this optimal cost as the benchmark, we investigate the effectiveness of using the wholesale price-discount scheme for the manufacturer to coordinate this decentralized system. We give numerical examples to show the benefits of EOC to the whole supply chain, examine the efficiency of the discount scheme in general situation, and provide the special conditions when the full coordination is achieved.Supply chain coordination Early order commitment Price discount Gaming

A note on "Price discount based on early order commitment in a single manufacturer-multiple retailer supply chain"

In a recent paper by Xie et al. [Xie, J., Zhou, D., Wei, J.C., Zhao, X., 2010. Price discount based on early order commitment in a single manufacturer-multiple retailer supply chain. European Journal of Operational Research 200, 368-376], the authors have studied the early order commitment (EOC) strategy for a decentralized, two-level supply chain consisting of a single manufacturer and multiple retailers. They fail to provide an algorithm to determine the optimal EOC periods to minimize the total supply chain cost. This note proposes a polynomial-time algorithm to find the optimal solutions, and provides a new set of sufficient conditions under which the wholesale price discount scheme coordinates the whole supply chain.Supply chain management Early order commitment 0-1 programming Supply chain coordination Wholesale price discount contract

A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR PROJECT’S TEMPORARY RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CONSTRUCTION ORGANISATIONS

The importance of effective temporary multi-disciplinary organisational teams has been a central aim of management research in the construction industry for over 50 years. This study contributes to what is known about the formation of a construction project organisation by exploring more in-depth how buying organisations collaborative procurement strategies interact with a range of trade contractors and by identifying the factors that affect contractors’ selection of strategy from supply chain organisations during project development. The research methodology adopted a combined approach to data collection and analysis, and used a theoretical framework adapted from transaction economics and resource-based theory to identify and explicate factors influencing contractor's selection of collaborative integrative strategy. The research method for data collection in the dominant quantitative second stage used a postal survey of 107 professionals working for contracting organisations in the United Kingdom in February 2013. The resultant data set was analysed using descriptive statistics. A multi variable general linear model and principal component analysis defined the parameters of the conceptual framework. The findings of this research suggested that buying organisations vary their procurement strategies to reflect supplying firms’ asset specificities, resources provided and uncertainty associated project under consideration