We consider a three-tier supply chain consisting of an original equipment manufacturer (OEM), a contract manufacturer (CM) and a supplier. We analyze and compare three outsourcing structures that are currently implemented by top-tier OEMs: (1) inhouse consignment, under which the OEM signs...

In this paper, we study customer equilibrium as well as socially optimal strategies to join a queue with only partial information on the service time distribution such as moments and the range. Based on such partial information, customers adopt the entropy-maximization principle to obtain the...

l outsourcing with a return policy is quite commonly adopted in the fashion supply chain. Under the return policy, the supplier as a brand owner may focus on production, and then outsource retailing to the retailer. In the meanwhile, the retailer may receive some support money from the supplier...

We consider the problem of scheduling a given set of n jobs with equal processing times on m parallel machines so as to minimize the makespan. Each job has a given release date and is compatible to only a subset of the machines. The machines are ordered and indexed in such a way that a...

The <italic>ex post</italic> test of materiality is the traditional approach for a court to examine whether the non-disclosed information of the policyholder is material for a prudent underwriter. The approach of the <italic>ex post</italic> test has been questioned by the shipping industry, and amendments to the relevant...

This paper investigates how the behavior of individual decision makers can affect the performance of a supply chain. We study a two-stage supplier-retailer system, using a buy-back contract. Each firm's actions are executed by an agent. The retailer's purchasing agent and the supplier's sales...

We consider an assemble-to-order system in which multiple products are assembled from a common component and a set of product-dedicated components. Component capacities are chosen prior to a finite-horizon selling season, and the common component is allocated to the products based on observed...

We explore the impact of a digital channel for experience goods on the profitability and behavior of players in the supply chain and on piracy. We consider a firm which can sell an experience good in physical form, in digitized form, or both. We analyze different pricing schemes - price for...

We consider two balking queue models with different types of information about delays. Potential customers arrive according to a Poisson process, and they decide whether to stay or balk based on the available delay information. In the first model, an arriving customer learns a rough range of the...

Information about delays can enhance service quality in many industries. Delay information can take many forms, with different degrees of precision. Different levels of information have different effects on customers and therefore on the overall system. To explore these effects, we consider a...