Research On Two-Echolon Supply Chain Inventory Coordination Model Under Uncertain Environment

In the process of inventory management, supply chain coordination mechanisms have been proposed through contracts so as to reduce the inventory cost of both parties and optimize the overall system performance; this idea has been widely employed in various industries. When designing and implementing the contract, supply chain members should make reasonable forecast towards the external variables like market demand. Most of the classic models concerning the forecasting mechanism usually assume that those external variables of the model are either determinate numbers or a random variable with known distribution. However, in most of the practical cases, especially with new products or new customers, it is very hard to know the exact number of the parameter, or get sufficient historical data to do such mathematical analysis.Based on these considerations, this paper tries to build the model of the game process with supply chain members according to the coordination mechanism under uncertain demand. We resort to the fuzzy theory, game theory, operations research and optimization theory, formulate the mathematical programming for fuzzy-based supply chain management, and discuss influence of the fuzzy demand forecast accuracy of both parties to the whole supply chain performance and to the profit share. The paper is organized in the following three aspects:(1) Two-echelon supply chain inventory coordination model under uncertain demand. This model involves fuzzy theory to analyze the uncertain market demand in the traditional model of supply chain coordination. Fuzzy theory is proofed to be handful in dealing with complicated systems especially analyzing the fuzziness of people’s behavior and judgments towards uncertain parameters, which largely facilitate traditional mathematical tools. Although recently, fuzzy theory is increasingly involved in uncertain inventory control management problems, most of the researches focused on the internal operation problems of a single company, the problems with the whole supply chain coordination mechanism have not been fully discussed yet. Also, determinate demand could be regarded as one specific type of fuzzy demand; hence the study on the supply chain coordination mechanism under fuzzy demand could extend the classic supply chain models and obtain the solution in a more practical assumption.(2) Two-echelon supply chain inventory coordination model with perishable product under uncertain demand.This model extends the fuzzy-based supply chain coordination model to study perishable products. Many classic models assume that products could be stocked without decaying, while in the real world, the products which are decaying with time are very common, hence classic models are no longer suitable for those products. Although there are extensive literatures concerning the decaying nature of the products, most of them mainly focus on the independent inventory strategy inside companies. Those problems involving coordination between supply chain members of perishable products have not been adequately addressed yet. In this paper, we extend our research to an even complicated case by introducing the concept of perishable products to the coordination mechanism, so as to discuss this practical situation.(3) Two-echelon supply chain inventory coordination model with hybrid-channel-selling products under uncertain demand.Further extending the models, we study a more complicated yet practical case, to introduce the hybrid-channel products to the supply chain coordination model. With the development of internet technology, the hybrid channel sales model combining traditional sales model and internet direct sales model has been widely used in the modern society. The theoretical research of this new model has not been adequately conducted comparing with the rapid employment of this model itself in various industries. Because of the hybrid mechanism, the description of this problem is in need of revised or brand new models, which gradually challenges the academia. In the recent researches, most of the papers are focusing on the influence of the hybrid channel to the customers’behavior, while to introduce the hybrid channel to the supply chain operations and inventory management is a fresh idea with a valuable angle.The problems discussed in this paper has strong practical background and in need of theoretical support; the knowledge and techniques used in the paper is widely acknowledged in renowned research journals; and the model built in the paper is well organized based on adequate assumptions and basic researches. We sincerely hope this paper will provide valuable theoretic evidence and practical guideline for further study on related issues.