Nash Game Model for Optimizing Market Strategies, Configuration of Platform Products in a Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) Supply Chain for a Product Family

This paper discusses how a manufacturer and its retailers interact with each other to optimize their product marketing strategies, platform product configuration and inventory policies in a VMI (Vendor Managed Inventory) supply chain. The manufacturer procures raw materials from multiple suppliers to produce a family of products sold to multiple retailers. Multiple types of products are substitutable each other to end customers. The manufacturer makes its decision on raw materials’ procurement, platform product configuration, product replenishment policies to retailers with VMI, price discount rate, and advertising investment to maximize its profit. Retailers in turn consider the optimal local advertising and retail price to maximize their profits. This problem is modeled as a dual simultaneous non-cooperative game (as a Nash game) model with two sub-games. One is between the retailers serving in competing retail markets and the other is between the manufacturer and the retailers. This paper combines analytical, iterative and GA (genetic algorithm) methods to develop a game solution algorithm to find the Nash equilibrium. A numerical example is conducted to test the proposed model and algorithm, and gain managerial implications

Leader-follower Game in VMI System with Limited Production Capacity Considering Wholesale and Retail Prices

VMI (Vendor Managed Inventory) is a widely used cooperative inventory policy in supply chains in which each enterprise has its autonomy in pricing. This paper discusses a leader-follower Stackelberg game in a VMI supply chain where the manufacturer, as a leader, produces a single product with a limited production capacity and delivers it at a wholesale price to multiple different retailers, as the followers, who then sell the product in dispersed and independent markets at retail prices. An algorithm is then developed to determine the equilibrium of the Stackelberg game. Finally, a numerical study is conducted to understand the influence of the Stackelberg equilibrium and market related parameters on the profits of the manufacturer and its retailers. Through the numerical example, our research demonstrates that: (a) the market related parameters have significant influence on the manufacturer’ and its retailers’ profits; (b) a retailer’s profit ma

Editorial : Concurrent Enterprising for Mass Customization

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RFID - a unique radio innovation for the 21st Century [scanning the issue]

This special issue explores the state of the art across the RFID technology landscape from hardware, to systems, as well as applications and support for innovative business models

Planetary-scale RFID services in an age of uberveillance

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) has a great number of unfulfilled prospects. Part of the problem until now has been the value proposition behind the technology-it has been marketed as a replacement technique for the barcode when the reality is that it has far greater capability than simply non-line-of-sight identification, towards decision making in strategic management and reengineered business processes. The vision of the internet of things (IOT) has not eventuated but a world in which every object you can see around you carries the possibility of being connected to the internet is still within the realm of possibility. However incremental innovations may see RFID being sold as a service (much like photocopiers are maintained today) than a suite of technologies within a system that are sold as individual or bundled packaged components. This paper outlines the vision for such a product service system, what kinds of smart applications we are likely to see in the future as a result, and the importance of data management capabilities in planetary-scale systems

Multi-messenger Observations of a Binary Neutron Star Merger

International audienceOn 2017 August 17 a binary neutron star coalescence candidate (later designated GW170817) with merger time 12:41:04 UTC was observed through gravitational waves by the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors. The Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor independently detected a gamma-ray burst (GRB 170817A) with a time delay of $\sim 1.7\,{\rm{s}}$ with respect to the merger time. From the gravitational-wave signal, the source was initially localized to a sky region of 31 deg(2) at a luminosity distance of ${40}_{-8}^{+8}$ Mpc and with component masses consistent with neutron stars. The component masses were later measured to be in the range 0.86 to 2.26 $\,{M}_{\odot }$. An extensive observing campaign was launched across the electromagnetic spectrum leading to the discovery of a bright optical transient (SSS17a, now with the IAU identification of AT 2017gfo) in NGC 4993 (at $\sim 40\,{\rm{Mpc}}$) less than 11 hours after the merger by the One-Meter, Two Hemisphere (1M2H) team using the 1 m Swope Telescope. The optical transient was independently detected by multiple teams within an hour. Subsequent observations targeted the object and its environment. Early ultraviolet observations revealed a blue transient that faded within 48 hours. Optical and infrared observations showed a redward evolution over ∼10 days. Following early non-detections, X-ray and radio emission were discovered at the transient’s position $\sim 9$ and $\sim 16$ days, respectively, after the merger. Both the X-ray and radio emission likely arise from a physical process that is distinct from the one that generates the UV/optical/near-infrared emission. No ultra-high-energy gamma-rays and no neutrino candidates consistent with the source were found in follow-up searches. These observations support the hypothesis that GW170817 was produced by the merger of two neutron stars in NGC 4993 followed by a short gamma-ray burst (GRB 170817A) and a kilonova/macronova powered by the radioactive decay of r-process nuclei synthesized in the ejecta