Rationing Capacity in Advance Selling to Signal Quality

We consider a seller who can sell her product over two periods, advance and spot. The seller has private information about the product quality, which is unknown to customers in advance and publicly revealed in spot. The question we consider is whether the seller has an incentive to signal quality in advance and, if so, how she can convey a credible signal of product quality. We characterize the seller's signaling strategy and find that rationing of capacity in the advance period is an effective tool of signaling product quality. We find that the high-quality seller can distinguish herself by allocating less capacity than the low-quality seller in the advance period. We show that this signaling mechanism exists whenever advance selling would be optimal for both the high-quality and low-quality sellers if quality information was symmetric. We compare capacity rationing with other signaling tools, such as pricing and advertising, and show that capacity rationing is the preferred one. Despite its capability of conveying quality information more efficiently than other tools, capacity rationing may still be very costly for the seller. When compared to the case when rationing was not allowed, the seller's ability to ration (rationing flexibility) sometimes makes the seller worse off, independently of her quality.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/100188/1/1204_Kapuscinski.pd

Shipping Consolidation with Delivery Deadline and Expedited Shipment Options

Problem definition: Shipment consolidation is commonly used to take advantage of the economies of scale by avoiding some of the shipping costs. However, when pending current orders are consolidated with future orders it may require more expensive expedited shipment in order to meet shorter deadlines. In this paper, we study the optimal consolidation policy focusing on the trade-off between economies of scale and expedited shipping costs. Academic/Practical Relevance: Our work is motivated by the prevalence of consolidation in the supply chain industry and also by its potential application for online and omni-channel retailing, especially with the rise of, so-called, on-demand logistic services. In such situations, sellers, have the flexibility to take advantage of consolidation, by deciding from which warehouse to fulfill the orders and also when to ship the orders, as long as the orders deadlines are met. Methodology: We use Dynamic Programming to study the optimal policy and its structure. We also conduct intensive simulation tests to show the good performance of heuristics which we proposed based on structures of the optimal policy. Results: The optimal policies and their structures are characterized in settings with up to two warehouses, where the impact of expedited shipment on both shipping policy and order fulfillment policy are explored. Utilizing the insights of these structural properties, two easily implementable heuristics are proposed, which perform within 1-2% of the optimal in intensive numerical tests. Managerial Implications: Despite the complexity of the actual optimal consolidation policy, sellers can apply the two simple heuristic policies we proposed to get near-optimal performance in various cases.https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138942/1/1375_Jasin.pd

Should competing firms reveal their capacity?

In this article, we explore when firms have an incentive to hide (or reveal) their capacity information. We consider two firms that aim to maximize profits over time and face limited capacity. One or both of the firms have private information on their own capacity levels, and they update their beliefs about their rival's capacity based on their observation of the other firm's output. We focus on credible revelation mechanisms—a firm may signal its capacity through overproduction, compared to its myopic production levels. We characterize conditions when high‐capacity firms may have the incentive and capability to signal their capacity levels by overproduction. We show that prior beliefs about capacity play a crucial, and surprisingly complex, role on whether the firm would prefer to reveal its capacity or not. A surprising result is that, despite the fact that it may be best for the high‐capacity firm to overproduce to reveal its capacity when capacity information is private, it may end up with more profits than if all capacity information were public knowledge in the first place. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2013Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/96261/1/21521_ftp.pd

Optimal Operational Versus Financial Hedging for a Risk-Averse Firm

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Variance vs. Standard Deviation: Variability Reduction Through Operations Reversal

We show that if the analysis of the model of Lee and Tang used standard deviation rather than variance, some nonintuitive predictions of their analysis would be eliminated.process design, variety management, operations resequencing

Performance-Based Contracts for Energy Efficiency Projects

Energy efficiency projects are often executed by specialized entities, namely energy service companies (ESCOs). A typical ESCO's core business is conducted using performance-based contracts, whereby payment terms depend on the energy savings achieved. Despite their success in public, commercial, and industrial sectors, ESCOs in the residential sector are involved in fewer projects and face several challenges. First, an energy efficiency project often leads to changed consumption behavior; hence it is more difficult to evaluate the energy savings that are due to the project itself. The second challenge is that residential clients are more risk averse and, thus, less willing to contract for projects whose outcomes are uncertain. Third, a lack of monitoring protocols leads to ESCO's moral hazard problems. This paper studies ESCO contract design issues, focusing primarily on the residential market for energy efficiency. As opposed to other sectors, coordinating contracts do not exist. We show, however, that simple piecewise linear contracts work reasonably well. To improve their profitability, ESCOs can reduce uncertainty about the technology employed and/or develop ways of verifying post-project energy efficiency. Since policy makers are understandably keen to promote energy efficiency, we show also how regulations and monetary incentives can reduce inefficiencies in ESCOs' relationships and thereby maximize environmental benefits

Existence of Coordinating Transshipment Prices in a Two-Location Inventory Model

We consider a two-location production/inventory model where each location makes production decisions and is subject to uncertain capacity. Each location optimizes its own profits. Transshipment (at a cost) is allowed from one location to another. We focus on the question of whether one can globally set a pair of coordinating transshipment prices, i.e., payments that each party has to make to the other for the transshipped goods, that induce the local decision makers to make inventory and transshipment decisions that are globally optimal. A recent paper suggests, for a special case of our model, that there always exists a unique pair of coordinating transshipment prices. We demonstrate through a counterexample that this statement is not correct and derive sufficient and necessary conditions under which it would hold. We show that in some conditions, coordinating prices may exist for only a narrow range of problem parameters and explore conditions when this can happen. Finally, we study the effects of demand and capacity variability on the magnitude of coordinating transshipment prices.supply chain, uncertain capacity, coordination