We study a retailer's sourcing contract when the supplier's reservation profit (offered by his outside options) depends on his cost, which is privately known to only the supplier. An interesting discovery from our analysis is that supply chain coordination may be achieved despite the...

We analyze a supply chain consisting of a supplier and a retailer. The supplier's unit production cost, which characterizes his type, is only privately known to him. When trading with the retailer, the supplier demands a reservation profit that depends on his unit production cost. We model this...

We study a drop-shipping supply chain in which the retailer receives a customer's order and the supplier fills it. In such a chain, the supplier keeps inventory and bears inventory risks; the retailer focuses on marketing and customer acquisition, and forwards the orders to the supplier. The...

The extant supply chain management literature has not addressed the issue of coordination in supply chains involving risk-averse agents. We take up this issue and begin with defining a coordinating contract as one that results in a Pareto-optimal solution acceptable to each agent. Our definition...

We investigate how a supply chain involving a risk-neutral supplier and a downside-risk-averse retailer can be coordinated with a supply contract. We show that the standard buy-back or revenue-sharing contracts may not coordinate such a channel. Using a definition of coordination of supply...

In “Coordination of Supply Chains with Risk-Averse Agents” (POMS, Volume 13, 2004), we study the issue of coordination in supply chains involving risk-averse agents, and define a coordinating contract as one that results in a Pareto-optimal solution acceptable to each agent. We then develop...

We develop a general model for software development process and propose a policy to manage system coordination using system fault reports (e.g., interface inconsistencies, parameter mismatches, etc.). These reports are used to determine the timing of coordination activities that remove faults....

Managing product availability in a cost effective way has always been a major challenge faced by inventory managers. We study the problem of a firm selling a perishable product with short-term demand patterns and a long-term service target using the newsvendor framework. The newsvendor...

Managing customer satisfaction in a cost effective way has always been a major challenge faced by inventory managers. We study the problem of a newsvendor selling a perishable product with short-term demand patterns and a long-term service target. The newsvendor determines his long-term order at...

We deal with the problem of a profit-maximizing vendor selling a perishable product. At the beginningof a planning cycle, the vendor determines a minimum committed order per period. During the cycle, he may also place a supplemental order in each period based on the observed demand signal in...