We consider a decentralized assembly system in which a buyer purchases components from several first-tier suppliers. We examine the dynamics of suppliers' investments in cost-reduction initiatives over the life cycle of a product under different procurement approaches. We model the suppliers'...

Process improvement plays a significant role in reducing production costs over the life cycle of a product. We consider the role of process improvement in a decentralized assembly system in which a buyer purchases components from several first-tier suppliers. These components are assembled into...

Inventory record inaccuracy leads to ineffective replenishment decisions and deteriorates supply chain performance. Conducting cycle counts (i.e., periodic inventory auditing) is a common approach to correcting inventory records. It is not clear, however, how inaccuracy at different locations...

Does the payment scheme have an effect on inventory decisions in the newsvendor problem? Keeping the net profit structure constant, we examine three payment schemes that can be interpreted as the newsvendor's order being financed by the newsvendor herself (scheme O), by the supplier through...

This paper studies the assortment planning problem with multiple merchandise categories and basket shopping consumers (i.e., consumers who desire to purchase from multiple categories). We present a duopoly model in which retailers choose prices and variety level in each category and consumers...

It is common for a retailer to sell products from competing manufacturers. How then should the firms manage their contract negotiations? The supply chain coordination literature focuses either on a single manufacturer selling to a single retailer or one manufacturer selling to many (possibly...

As is our tradition at the journal, we are pleased to publish the extended abstracts from the winners of the 2003 MSOM Society Student Paper Competition. We do this to celebrate the achievements of these young scholars and provide you with the opportunity to learn about their work in more...

The newsvendor model is designed to decide how much of a product to order when the product is to be sold over a short selling season with stochastic demand and there are no additional opportunities to replenish inventory. There are many practical situations that reasonably conform to those...

For many companies, inventory record inaccuracy is a major obstacle to achieving operational excellence. In this paper, we consider an inventory system in which inventory records are inaccurate. The manager makes inventory inspection and replenishment decisions at the beginning of each period....

This paper studies assortment planning and pricing for a product category with heterogeneous product types from two brands. We model consumer choice using the nested multinomial logit framework with two different hierarchical structures: a brand-primary model in which consumers choose a brand...