| Effective Supply Chain Management (SCM) requires the careful coordination of information, material, and financial flows in the supply chain in a way that supports a competitive cost and service tradeoff profile for the final consumer.; In this dissertation, we study competitive supply marketplaces with multiple suppliers of a single non-differentiated product, and multiple retailers (buyers) who do not competitively interact with each other. We consider two-stage coordinations, coordination via market-based matching at the first stage, and coordination via lot-sizing at the second stage.; The dissertation consists of five chapters. The first chapter introduces the background of this research and presents related literature reviews.; The second chapter focuses on the market-based coordination via matching. It shows that a supplier's inventory cost structure determines the position as well as the size of her market segment and the magnitude of her inventory cost, relative to her competitors. An efficient algorithm is developed to determine each supplier's market segment. Market share sensitivity analysis is performed when a supplier's inventory cost changes or when a new supplier enters the market.; The third chapter studies the supply chain containing two coexisted suppliers and many retailers facing stable demand. Transportation cost is considered via a Hotelling-type model. Two pricing strategies are considered in this chapter: a long term profit maximization strategy (PMS) and a short term sale promotion strategy (SPS). The equilibrium price, the market segment, and the overall profit of each supplier that result from both pricing strategies are obtained and compared. The comparison analysis helps the suppliers to choose their pricing strategies in competitive environment.; The fourth chapter compares the two situations, suppliers do or do not coordinate via lot-sizing, assuming the supply chain is already coordinated via the first stage coordination, matching. The common surface that describes the market segmentation in both situations is found. Then the market segmentations are compared and analyzed.; Finally, the fifth chapter illustrates the algorithms by numerical examples. It also provides examples to support the theories established in the previous chapters. Furthermore, the practical usages and implementations of our models are discussed. |
