Demand Management and Inventory Control for Substitutable Products

Demand Management and Inventory Control for Substitutable Products PDF Author: Jing-Sheng Jeannette Song
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
This paper studies dynamic inventory and pricing decisions for a set of substitutable products over a finite planning horizon with full backlogging. The objective is to maximize the total expected discounted profit. We present a general stochastic, price-dependent demand model that unifies many commonly used demand models in the literature. The original formulation is not jointly concave in the decision variables and is therefore intractable. One key observation is that the problem becomes jointly concave if we work with the inverse of the price vector -- the market share vector. With this variable transformation, we are able to characterize the optimal policy and develop algorithms to compute it. In each period, the optimal policy first identifies a set of the products that are overstocked and hence need no replenishment and then specifies the optimal order-up-to levels for under-stocked products and the optimal market shares (and prices) for all products, both of which are functions of the overstocking levels. We further establish conditions under which the optimal policy demonstrates certain monotonicity property that can greatly enhance computation. Finally, we develop several computationally efficient heuristic policies and numerically compare them and discuss the interplay of pricing and inventory decisions.

Demand Management and Inventory Control for Substitutable Products

Demand Management and Inventory Control for Substitutable Products PDF Author: Jing-Sheng Jeannette Song
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
This paper studies dynamic inventory and pricing decisions for a set of substitutable products over a finite planning horizon with full backlogging. The objective is to maximize the total expected discounted profit. We present a general stochastic, price-dependent demand model that unifies many commonly used demand models in the literature. The original formulation is not jointly concave in the decision variables and is therefore intractable. One key observation is that the problem becomes jointly concave if we work with the inverse of the price vector -- the market share vector. With this variable transformation, we are able to characterize the optimal policy and develop algorithms to compute it. In each period, the optimal policy first identifies a set of the products that are overstocked and hence need no replenishment and then specifies the optimal order-up-to levels for under-stocked products and the optimal market shares (and prices) for all products, both of which are functions of the overstocking levels. We further establish conditions under which the optimal policy demonstrates certain monotonicity property that can greatly enhance computation. Finally, we develop several computationally efficient heuristic policies and numerically compare them and discuss the interplay of pricing and inventory decisions.

Accounting for Substitutable Demand in Inventory Control

Accounting for Substitutable Demand in Inventory Control PDF Author: A.R. Mcgillivray
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description


Research Handbook on Inventory Management

Research Handbook on Inventory Management PDF Author: Jing-Sheng J. Song
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 180037710X
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 565

Get Book Here

Book Description
This comprehensive Handbook provides an overview of state-of-the-art research on quantitative models for inventory management. Despite over half a century’s progress, inventory management remains a challenge, as evidenced by the recent Covid-19 pandemic. With an expanse of world-renowned inventory scholars from major international research universities, this Handbook explores key areas including mathematical modelling, the interplay of inventory decisions and other business decisions and the unique challenges posed to multiple industries.

Essays on Assortment Planning and Inventory Management for Substitutable Products

Essays on Assortment Planning and Inventory Management for Substitutable Products PDF Author: Ying Cao (Ph. D.)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Advertising
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
This dissertation consists of three essays which study assortment planning and inventory management of substitutable products motivated by different practical problems. Chapter 2 considers the assortment planning problem for a retailer who faces customers that buy multiple differentiated products (n-pack) on a store visit. We develop two choice models: the probabilistic choice rule which captures the heterogeneous consumer population choice pattern and maximum choice rule which captures the homogeneous consumer population choice pattern. We find that, under probabilistic choice rule, the optimal assortment is such that it includes a certain number of the most and least popular products. In contrast, under maximum choice rule, the optimal assortment does not have a fixed structure except that it is guaranteed to include the most popular product. We develop an algorithm under maximum choice rule which is shown to have good performance. In addition, we derive the structure of optimal assortment under both choice rules when a retailer ignores key features of n-pack choice model including choice premium and basket shopping behavior. We also conduct a numerical study where we show that ignoring these key features can lead to significant profit loss for a retailer. Chapter 3 explores the assortment planning for a firm who faces a two-sided market. That is, the firm receives revenues from two distinct user groups: the customers, who pay for the products it sells and the advertisers who pay to advertise their brand to the customers. We obtain structural properties of the optimal assortment. We also consider the case where the firm is allowed to offer multiple products with the same attractiveness profile and price. In this case, we obtain conditions under which the optimal assortment is made out of distinct products. In addition, we show that ignoring the revenue from the customers or the advertisers, or focusing only on one segment when making product assortment decisions can lead to a significant revenue loss; specifically, we derive the theoretical bound on revenue loss in these situations. Chapter 4 studies the decision making of an inventory manager who needs to decide order quantities of multiple substitutable products in his store. As such, the decision maker typically checks the sales history of the products. When there is stock-out, the sales history provides inaccurate information because the lost sales are unobservable and the sales from substitution are indistinguishable from first-choice sales, which we refer to as the "doublecensoring effect". To study the impact of substitution rate and information amount on decision maker's performance, we design an experiment where subjects need to decide inventory levels for 2 substitutable products in consecutive 30 periods. The experimental data shows that subjects underestimate the demand for high demand product and overestimate the demand for low demand product. Moreover, the bias is worse when there is substitution in fully censored information treatment. Also, when subjects are provided with less information, they tend to order larger quantity in early periods in order to learn demand.

Managing in the Information Economy

Managing in the Information Economy PDF Author: Uday Apte
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387368922
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 475

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book presents recent research directions that address management in the information economy. The contributors include leading researchers with interests in a diverse set of topics who highlight important areas and point to some important topics for future research. The book begins with perspectives at the level of the economy as a whole and then progressively addresses industrial structure, sectors, functions, and business practices.

Stochastic Inventory Control with Partial Demand Observability

Stochastic Inventory Control with Partial Demand Observability PDF Author: Olga L. Ortiz
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Decision making
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
This dissertation focuses on issues associated with the value of information in models of sequential decision making under uncertainty. All of these issues are motivated by inventory management problems. First, we study the effect of the accuracy of inventory counts on system performance when using a zero-memory controller in an inventory system that is modeled as a partially observed Markov decision process (POMDP). We derive conditions for which improving the accuracy of inventory counts will either (i) improve system performance, (ii) degrade system performance or (iii) will not affect system performance. With a computational study, we determine the range of profitability impacts that result from inaccurate inventory counts when using reasonable zero-memory control policies. Second, we assess the value of demand observation quality in an inventory system with Markovian demand and lost sales. Again, the POMDP serves as a problem model, and we develop computationally tractable suboptimal algorithms to enable the computation of effective lower bounds on system profitability when demand observations are noise-corrupted. We then extend our results toconsider the effects that product substitution has on system performance. We show that systems with low demand variability, high holding cost levels, and high levels of substitution benefit more from demand bservability than systems with high demand variability, low holding cost levels, and low levels of substitution. Third, to enhance our understanding of sequential inventory control with substitutable products, we analyze a two-item inventory problem with known deterministic primary demand, but stochastic one-way substitution. We model this problem as a MDP and show that a decision rule that minimizes the single period cost function, when applied at every decision epoch over the infinite horizon, is an optimal policy for the infinite horizon problem. A definition of increased substitutability is presented, and it is shown that increased substitutability never increases optimal expected total discounted cost.

The Oxford Handbook of Pricing Management

The Oxford Handbook of Pricing Management PDF Author: Özalp Özer
Publisher: Oxford University Press (UK)
ISBN: 0199543178
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 977

Get Book Here

Book Description
A definitive reference to the theory and practice of pricing across industries, environments, and methodologies. It covers all major areas of pricing including, pricing fundamentals, pricing tactics, and pricing management.

Influencing Customer Demand

Influencing Customer Demand PDF Author: Mahya Hemmati
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1000406970
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Get Book Here

Book Description
In today’s competitive markets, considering the demand and the supply chain sides is crucial to keeping revenue and customer satisfaction maximized. Managing and planning demand play a vital role in the sustainability of a company. This is the first book to the discuss managerial, mathematical, and conceptual framework of influencing factors on demand along with accurate mathematical analyses to evaluate and raise revenue. The book provides an understanding of the key elements that impact buyer demand. It presents the mathematical relationship between the influencing factors and the demand functions. It discusses the methods used for inspiring demand, how to measure demand dependency on components such as price, quality, and inventory, and it helps management improve alignment between supply and demand by affecting the level and understanding of the role within supply chain management (SCM). This book is applicable for the professional as well as for academia. It can help those working in SCM, project management, production, inventory control, scheduling, engineering management, retail management, and operations management.

Supply and Demand Management in Clicks-and-mortar Operations

Supply and Demand Management in Clicks-and-mortar Operations PDF Author: Elliot Bendoly
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Get Book Here

Book Description


Demand Forecasting and Inventory Control

Demand Forecasting and Inventory Control PDF Author: Colin Lewis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113634683X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 172

Get Book Here

Book Description
This practical book covers the forecasting- and inventory control methods used in commercial, retail and manufacturing companies. Colin Lewis explains the theory and practice of current demand forecasting methods, the links between forecasts produced as a result of analysing demand data and the various methods by which this information, together with cost information on stocked items, is used to establish the controlling parameters of the most commonly used inventory control systems. The demand forecasting section of the book concentrates on the family of short-term forecasting models based on the exponentially weighted average and its many variants and also a group of medium-term forecasting models based on a time series, curve fitting approach. The inventory control sections investigate the re-order level policy and re-order cycle policy and indicate how these two processes can be operated at minimum cost while offering a high level of customer service.