Using a proprietary data set provided by a major manufacturer of aircraft engines, we empirically investigate how product reliability is impacted by the use of two different types of after-sales maintenance support contracts: time and material contracts (T&MC) and performance-based contracts...

Firms that rely on functioning mission-critical equipment for their businesses cannot afford significant operational downtime due to system disruptions. To minimize the impact of disruptions, a proper incentive mechanism has to be in place so that the suppliers provide prompt restoration and...

Performance-based contracting is reshaping service support supply chains in capital-intensive industries such as aerospace and defense. Known as "power by the hour" in the private sector and as "performance-based logistics" (PBL) in defense contracting, it aims to replace traditionally used...

We study the demand forecast-sharing process between a buyer of customized production equipment and a set of equipment suppliers. Based on a large data collection we undertook in the semiconductor equipment supply chain, we empirically investigate the relationship between the buyer's forecasting...

In this paper we develop a product life-cycle model that studies a set of strategic choices facing manufacturers as they design the joint product/service bundle for a product which may require maintenance and repair support after its sale. The choice parameters of interest include the product...

Motivated by a study of the logistics systems used to manage consumable service parts for the U.S. military, we consider a static threshold-based rationing policy that is useful when pooling inventory across two demand classes characterized by different arrival rates and shortage (stockout and...

Reduction of new product development cycle time and improvements in product performance have become strategic objectives for many technology-driven firms. These goals may conflict, however, and firms must explicitly consider the tradeoff between them. In this paper we introduce a multistage...

This paper presents a model of an (s, S) inventory system in which there are two priority classes of customers. The model treats excess demands as lost sales and can accommodate an arbitrary deterministic lead time. After considering the associated Markov-chain model, an approximate,...

This paper deals with the analysis of two-location periodic review inventory systems with non-negligible replenishment lead times. Emergency transshipments are used in these systems as a recourse action to reduce the occurrence of shortages. A class of partial pooling policies is proposed for...

In many service systems, customers interact with an agent who directs customers to specific service facilities. Each agent, as a decision maker, seeks to allocate his/her customers to the service centers so as to optimize a measure of performance based on the customers' expected waiting time and...