In this paper, we study the contracting issues in an outsourcing supply chain consisting of a user company and a call center that does outsourcing work for the user company. We model the call center as a G/G/s queue with customer abandonment. Each call has a revenue potential, and we model the...

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...

We review inventories in mainland China by evaluating the trajectory of aggregate inventories in recent decades, and then modelling the relationship of inventories in some 300,000 manufacturers with respect to volume (using cost of goods sold), industry (using SIC codes), and geographical...

We consider the order-fulfillment process of a supplier producing a customized capital good, such as production equipment, commercial aircraft, medical devices, or defense systems. As is common in these industries, prior to receiving a firm purchase order from the customer, the supplier receives...

Distribution centers (DCs) replenish stores with size-specific ship-packs. The ship-packs may be eaches (i.e. individual units), inners (a group of individual units), or cases (a group of inners). The problem that we consider is to determine the ship-pack to use for each stock-keeping-unit. The...