A Study On Various Supply Chain Finance Modes With Supplier Capital Constraint

In this thesis,we study various supply chain financing models for relieving supplier capital constraints.The methodologies we have used include game theory,operations re-search,and theories in supply chain management and decision-making system optimiza-tion.On the basis of corporate research and literature review,we build joint operational and financing decision models for a variety of supply chain financing modes.Applying both quantitative and qualitative methods,we develop a depth analysis of strategies in improving coordination between material flow and cash flow in capital-constraint sup-ply chains,strategies in optimizing the allocation of financial resources among supply chain parties,and strategies in improving the delivery capability of suppliers who are subject to capital constraints.The main results and contributions of the thesis are as follows:We first consider a supplier in financial constraint due to his holding accounts re-ceivable(AR)assets under trade credit contracts,and develop a decision-making model on optimizing the timing of selling AR assets in factoring transaction.We analyze how factoring affect the financial capacity,the lost-sales,and the financing cost of the capital-constraint supplier,and then compare the supplier's profits at a fixed-time factoring strat-egy and a just-in-time factoring strategy.We obtain the optimal timing of selling AR as-sets in the fixed-timing factoring strategy,and find that the supplier's preferred strategy depend on model parameters.We also formulate the interaction between the capital-constraint supplier and a factor as a Stackelberg game which allow us to examine the factor's optimal decision on the interest rate.Secondly,we study two different supply chain financing strategies in an assembly supply chain with one assembler and multiple component suppliers,which is based on the prevailing "1 + N" mode in real-world supply chain finance business.Specifically,we consider an assembly system consists of N capital-constraint component suppliers and an assembler.When suppliers are in short of working capital,they can either borrow from a bank(which is referred to as "bank financing")or from downstream assem-bler(which is referred to as "buyer financing").In both bank financing and buyer financing strategy,we model the interactions between the assembler and each compo-nent supplier as a Stackelberg game and the interactions among component suppliers as a Nash game.For each financing strategy,we solve the equilibrium,and analyze how the equilibrium wholesale prices,equilibrium interest rate,and assembler's profit vary with model parameters.Consider the buyer financing and bank financing strategies in an assembly supply chain with one assembler and multiple component suppliers,each firm in the supply chain may have different preference over the two strategies.We study the performances of the two strategies from,respectively,the perspective of the assembly manufacturer,the borrowing suppliers,no-borrowing suppliers and the whole supply chain.We then characterize the threshold conditions under which one(the assembler,a component sup-plier or the whole supply chain)may prefer one strategy or the other.Based on numerical analysis,we show how supplier's initial capital level,marginal production costs as well as the heterogeneity among different component suppliers may affect the assembler's strategy preference.When suppliers are subject to capital constraints,the downstream manufacturer can either choose to provide financing to supplier,or choose to purchase from multi-ple suppliers.We make a comparative study of the effectiveness of a single-supplier procurement strategy buyer financing and a multi-supplier procurement strategy from the manufacturer's perspective.Specifically,we consider a supply chain consisting of a manufacturer and two suppliers who have different production costs and working cap-ital levels.The manufacturer choose one of the following two procurement strategies:(1)Dual-supplier sourcing.The manufacturer preferentially purchase from the low-cost supplier,and purchase from the high-cost supplier only when demand exceeds the inven-tory level of the low-cost supplier.(2)Single-supplier sourcing with buyer financing.The manufacturer purchase only from low-cost supplier and provide financing to the low-cost supplier when demand exceeds the latter's inventory level.We compare the manufacturer's profits under the two strategies,and investigate how the strategy prefer-ence may depend on suppliers' inventory levels,the capital level of the low-cost supplier,the demand volatility and other parameters.