We study channel coordination policies for products subject to midlife price declines during their short product life cycles. Using a two-period supply chain model consisting of one supplier and one retailer, we identify policies and/or conditions under which the supply chain can be coordinated and a win-win situation can be guaranteed. We also provide algorithms to determine the win-win policy...

DONG, YUHAN. MIMO Beamforming with Mutual Coupling, Limited Feedback and Coordination. (Under the direction of Dr. Brian L. Hughes). Multi-input, multi-output (MIMO) techniques use multiple antennas at both the transmitter and receiver to improve the performance of wireless communications systems over multipath fading channels. In recent years, MIMO techniques that employ transmit beamforming h...

We consider the network sum rate maximization in the downlink of a cellular system based on the spatial channel model of the 3GPP MIMO urban macro cell with multiple antenna base stations and single antenna mobile devices. We formulate an upper bound to the kind of cooperation, where each mobile device is served by only one base station, but base stations try to control the interference they pr...

The saliency of returns in today’s business world is unquestionable, in such items as toys, Christmas decorations, books, seasonal/fashion items and the like. This is largely due to the high economic benefits prevalent in some industries today and to the increasing opportunities for resale in secondary and global markets. This paper attempts to model the profitability of returns policy in prese...

With the rapid development of e-commerce, many manufacturers nowadays opt to open an online channel to engage in direct online sales. The mix of retailing with an online channel adds a new dimension of competition and complementarity to a product’s distribution channels. Our model focuses on the strategic effect of the manufacturer’s national advertising on alleviating the channel competition. ...

A number of factors, including developments in Internet-based commerce and third-party logistics, have led many companies to consider engaging in direct sales. Such a company may at once be both a supplier to and a direct competitor of any existing reseller partners (e.g., land-based retailers), which can result in “channel conflict.” This can have momentous implications for distribution strate...

We consider a decentralized two-period supply chain in which a manufacturer produces a product and sells it through a retailer facing a price-dependent demand. We assume that the secondperiod production cost declines linearly in the first-period production, but with a random learning rate. As the mean and/or the standard deviation of the learning rate increase, the traditional double marginaliz...

I today’s multibrand, multichannel marketplace, optimal channel design involves issues such as distribution intensity, channel exclusivity, vertical and horizontal coordination, and online–offline mixed structures. We investigate how a firm’s choice in these design issues affects its profitability under varying levels of brand and outlet differentiation. Our spatial model explicitly captures he...

The importance of the reuse of components and materials from post-consumer products has been widely recognized in the literature and in practice. In this paper, we address the problem of choosing the appropriate channel structure for the recollection of post-consumer products from customers. Specifically, we consider a manufacturer who has three options for collecting such products: (a) she can...

With the rapid development of electronic commerce, many manufacturers choose to establish dualchannel supply chains. To promote sales, the manufacturer in a dual-channel supply chain usually invests in national advertising and provides support to the retailer who promotes the goodwill through local advertisement. In our research, we use a Stackelberg differential game theoretic model to show th...