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Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

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Articles 181 - 210 of 276

Full-Text Articles in Operations and Supply Chain Management

A Nonparametric Method For Pricing And Hedging American Options, Guiyun Feng, Guangwu Liu, Lihua Sun Dec 2013

A Nonparametric Method For Pricing And Hedging American Options, Guiyun Feng, Guangwu Liu, Lihua Sun

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In this paper, we study the problem of estimating the price of an American option and its price sensitivities via Monte Carlo simulation. Compared to estimating the option price which satisfies a backward recursion, estimating the price sensitivities is more challenging. With the readily-computable pathwise derivatives in a simulation run, we derive a backward recursion for the price sensitivities. We then propose nonparametric estimators, the k-nearest neighbor estimators, to estimate conditional expectations involved in the backward recursion, leading to estimates of the option price and its sensitivities in the same simulation run. Numerical experiments indicate that the proposed method works …


The Principles Of The Dry Bulk Ffa Market, Ron Wilson Oct 2013

The Principles Of The Dry Bulk Ffa Market, Ron Wilson

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

No abstract provided.


On The Allocation Of Exclusive-Use Counters For Airport Check-In Queues: Static Vs. Dynamic Policies, Mahmut Parlar, Brian Rodrigues, Sharafali Moosa Sep 2013

On The Allocation Of Exclusive-Use Counters For Airport Check-In Queues: Static Vs. Dynamic Policies, Mahmut Parlar, Brian Rodrigues, Sharafali Moosa

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In this paper we propose a static policy for the optimal allocation of a fixed number of exclusive-use check-in counters dedicated to a single flight. We first provide the motivation for considering the static policy by showing that the dynamic policy already available in the literature suffers from the curse of dimensionality. The objective is to minimize the (expected) total cost of waiting, counter operation, and passenger delay costs which we show to be convex in the number of counters allocated. In those cases where the passenger delay cost is difficult to estimate, we propose an alternative formulation and minimize …


On Properties Of Discrete (R,Q) And (S,T) Inventory Systems, Marcus Ang, Jing-Sheng Song, Mingzheng Wang, Hanqin Zhang Aug 2013

On Properties Of Discrete (R,Q) And (S,T) Inventory Systems, Marcus Ang, Jing-Sheng Song, Mingzheng Wang, Hanqin Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We consider single-item (r, q) and (s, T) inventory systems with integer-valued demand processes. While most of the inventory literature studies continuous approximations of these models and establishes joint convexity properties of the policy parameters in the continuous space, we show that these properties no longer hold in the discrete space, in the sense of linear interpolation extension and L♮-convexity. This nonconvexity can lead to failure of optimization techniques based on local optimality to obtain the optimal inventory policies. It can also make certain comparative properties established previously using continuous variables invalid. We revise these properties in the discrete space.


Plant Networks For Processing Recyclable Materials, Lieven Demeester, Mei Qi, Luk N. Van Wassenhove Aug 2013

Plant Networks For Processing Recyclable Materials, Lieven Demeester, Mei Qi, Luk N. Van Wassenhove

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We use a modified optimal market area model to examine how links between material recycling and other aspects of operations strategy can shape plant networks for the processing of recyclable materials. We characterize the complementarity of the recyclate ratio, defined as the maximum recycled content, with material versatility and miniscaling of recycling plants. We also observe that it is beneficial to coordinate investments in recycling- and production-related competencies because colocated recycling and production plants (minimills) eliminate recyclate transport. We therefore consider versatile miniplants, defined as a competency that factors in both material versatility and coordinated miniscaling of recycling and production …


Evaluations Of Port Performances From A Seaborne Cargo Supply Chain Perspective, Joyce M. W. Low, Shao Wei Lam, Loon Ching Tang, Zhang Lan Jul 2013

Evaluations Of Port Performances From A Seaborne Cargo Supply Chain Perspective, Joyce M. W. Low, Shao Wei Lam, Loon Ching Tang, Zhang Lan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Previous research on port efficiency focuses primarily on the provider’s perspective and assumes that maximizing the output is always desirable. This paper recognizes that maximizing the final output does not necessarily guarantee an efficient system and the notion of port efficiency and service effectiveness needs to be considered from the perspectives of both the provider and the consumer of the port service. The paper proposes a network-DEA model to evaluate the performances of 30 seaports worldwide. The concurrent consideration of efficiency scores from the network-DEA model and the traditional DEA-CCR model will offer valuable insights to port operators on how …


Multi-Item Production Planning With Carbon Cap And Trade Mechanism, Bin Zhang, Liang Xu Jul 2013

Multi-Item Production Planning With Carbon Cap And Trade Mechanism, Bin Zhang, Liang Xu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Carbon emission control becomes a challenge in recent years, and carbon emission trading is an effective way to curb carbon emission. This paper investigates the multi-item production planning problem with carbon cap and trade mechanism, in which a firm uses a common capacity and carbon emission quota to produce multiple products for fulfilling independent stochastic demands, and the firm can buy or sell the right to emit carbon on a trading market of carbon emission. A profit-maximization model is proposed to characterize the optimization problem. The optimal policy of production and carbon trading decisions is analyzed, and an efficient solution …


Scheduling Arrivals To A Stochastic Service Delivery System Using Copositive Cones, Qingxia Kong, Chung-Yee Lee, Chung-Piaw Teo, Zhichao Zheng May 2013

Scheduling Arrivals To A Stochastic Service Delivery System Using Copositive Cones, Qingxia Kong, Chung-Yee Lee, Chung-Piaw Teo, Zhichao Zheng

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In this paper we investigate a stochastic appointment-scheduling problem in an outpatient clinic with a single doctor. The number of patients and their sequence of arrivals are fixed, and the scheduling problem is to determine an appointment time for each patient. The service durations of the patients are stochastic, and only the mean and covariance estimates are known. We do not assume any exact distributional form of the service durations, and we solve for distributionally robust schedules that minimize the expectation of the weighted sum of patients' waiting time and the doctor's overtime. We formulate this scheduling problem as a …


Decision Support For Lead Time And Demand Variability Reduction, Xin Fang, Cheng Zhang, David J. Robb, Joseph D. Blackburn Apr 2013

Decision Support For Lead Time And Demand Variability Reduction, Xin Fang, Cheng Zhang, David J. Robb, Joseph D. Blackburn

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Companies undertaking operations improvement in supply chains face many alternatives. This work seeks to assist practitioners to prioritize improvement actions by developing analytical expressions for the marginal values of three parameters – (i) lead time mean, (ii) lead time variance, and (iii) demand variance – which measure the marginal cost of an incremental change in a parameter. The relative effectiveness of reducing lead time mean versus lead time variance is captured by the ratio of the marginal value of lead time mean to that of lead time variance. We find that this ratio strongly depends on whether the lead time …


Step By Step: The Benefits Of Stage-Based R&D Licensing Contracts, Pascale Crama, Bert De Reyck, Zeger Degraeve Feb 2013

Step By Step: The Benefits Of Stage-Based R&D Licensing Contracts, Pascale Crama, Bert De Reyck, Zeger Degraeve

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We examine how a licensor can optimally design licensing contracts for multi-phase R&D projects when he does not know the licensee’s project valuation, leading to adverse selection, and cannot enforce the licensee’s effort level, resulting in moral hazard. We focus on the effect of the phased nature typical of such projects, and compare single-phase and multi-phase contracts. We determine the optimal values for the upfront payment, milestone payments and royalties, and the optimal timing for outlicensing. Including multiple milestones and accompanying payments can be an effective way of discriminating between licensees holding different valuations, without having to manipulate the royalty …


Robust Storage Assignment In Unit-Load Warehouses, Marcus Ang, Yun Fong Lim, Melvyn Sim Nov 2012

Robust Storage Assignment In Unit-Load Warehouses, Marcus Ang, Yun Fong Lim, Melvyn Sim

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Assigning products to and retrieving them from proper storage locations are crucial in minimizing the operating cost of a unit-load warehouse. The problem becomes intractable when the warehouse faces variable supply and uncertain demand in a multi-period setting. We assume a factor-based demand model in which demand for each product in each period is affinely dependent on some uncertain factors. The distributions of these factors are only partially characterized. We introduce a robust optimization model that minimizes the worst-case expected total travel in the warehouse with distributional ambiguity of demand. Under a linear decision rule, we obtain a storage and …


Ecosystem Advantage: How To Successfully Harness The Power Of Partners, Peter James Williamson, Arnoud De Meyer Oct 2012

Ecosystem Advantage: How To Successfully Harness The Power Of Partners, Peter James Williamson, Arnoud De Meyer

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Changes in the global environment are generating opportunities for companies to build advantage by creating loosely coupled networks or ecosystems. Ecosystems are larger, more diverse, and more fluid than a traditional set of bilateral partnerships or complementors. By leveraging ecosystems, companies can deliver complex solutions while maintaining corporate focus. This article describes six keys to unlock ecosystem advantage: pinpointing where value is created, defining an architecture of differentiated partner roles, stimulating complementary partner investments, reducing the transaction costs, facilitating joint learning across the network, and engineering effective ways to capture profit.


Licensing Contracts: Control Rights And Options, Pascale Crama, Bert De Reyck, Niyazi Taneri Aug 2012

Licensing Contracts: Control Rights And Options, Pascale Crama, Bert De Reyck, Niyazi Taneri

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The rise of the open innovation paradigm creates the opportunity and need for research and development (R&D) collaborations. R&D collaboration, however, can be challenging to manage because of the high degree of technical and market uncertainty as well as the difficulty in measuring research effort. We investigate how the contracts between the innovating parties structure the R&D collaboration and jointly optimize the payment terms and launch control rights, to offer the correct incentives to the innovator and the marketer. We find that the nature of the impact of the research effort matters as milestone payments are not always effective in …


The Newsvendor's Optimal Incentive Contracts For Multiple Advertisers, Zhengping Wu, Pascale Crama, Wanshan Zhu Jul 2012

The Newsvendor's Optimal Incentive Contracts For Multiple Advertisers, Zhengping Wu, Pascale Crama, Wanshan Zhu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We consider a newsvendor who earns a revenue from the sales of her product to end users as well as from multiple advertisers paying to obtain access to those end users. We study the optimal decisions of a price-taking and a price-setting newsvendor when the advertisers have private information about their willingness to pay. We focus on the impact of the number of advertisers on the newsvendor’s optimal decisions. We find that regardless of the number of advertisers, the newsvendor may exclude advertisers with a low willingness to pay and distort the price and inventory from their system-efficient levels to …


Lifecycle Pricing For Installed Base Management With Constrained Capacity And Remanufacturing, Andreas Robotis, Shantanu Bhattacharya, Luk N. Van Wassenhove Mar 2012

Lifecycle Pricing For Installed Base Management With Constrained Capacity And Remanufacturing, Andreas Robotis, Shantanu Bhattacharya, Luk N. Van Wassenhove

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Installed base management is the policy in which the manufacturer leases the product to consumers, and bundles repair and maintenance services along with the product. In this article, we investigate for the optimal leasing price and leasing duration decisions by a monopolist when the production and servicing capacity are constrained. The effect of diffusion of consumers in the installed base is considered, with the ownership of the product resting with the monopolist during the product lifecycle. The monopolist operating the installed base jointly optimizes the profits from leasing the product/service bundle along with maintenance revenues and remanufacturing savings. We formulate …


Becoming Aware Of The Unknown: Decision Making During The Implementation Of A Strategic Initiative, Ronald Klingebiel, Arnoud De Meyer Mar 2012

Becoming Aware Of The Unknown: Decision Making During The Implementation Of A Strategic Initiative, Ronald Klingebiel, Arnoud De Meyer

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This qualitative study analyzes the decision-making process involved in adapting preconceived courses of action during the implementation of a strategic initiative. We observe that the type of decision-making process hinges on the nature of managers’ emerging awareness of future events. When managers become aware of new uncertainty, the process involves selectiveness, deliberateness, and diligence. By contrast, when managers become aware of new certainty, the process conforms to the problem-solving adhocracy and decision-making messiness emphasized in prior literature. We summarize our findings in a framework, proposing that decision-level differences in awareness and uncertainty can explain the observed variation in strategic decision-making …


Order-Picking By Cellular Bucket Brigades: A Case Study, Yun Fong Lim Jan 2012

Order-Picking By Cellular Bucket Brigades: A Case Study, Yun Fong Lim

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Assigning products to and retrieving them from proper storage locations are crucial in minimizing the operating cost of a unit-load warehouse. The problem becomes intractable when the warehouse faces variable supply and uncertain demand in a multi-period setting. We assume a factor-based demand model in which demand for each product in each period is affinely dependent on some uncertain factors. The distributions of these factors are only partially characterized. We introduce a robust optimization model that minimizes the worst-case expected total travel in the warehouse with distributional ambiguity of demand. Under a linear decision rule, we obtain a storage and …


Stochastic Capacity Investment And Flexible Vs. Dedicated Technology Choice In Imperfect Capital Markets, Onur Boyabatli, L. Bertil Toktay Dec 2011

Stochastic Capacity Investment And Flexible Vs. Dedicated Technology Choice In Imperfect Capital Markets, Onur Boyabatli, L. Bertil Toktay

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper analyzes the impact of endogenous credit terms under capital market imperfections in a capacity investment setting. We model a monopolist firm that decides on its technology choice (flexible versus dedicated) and capacity level under demand uncertainty. Differing from the majority of the stochastic capacity investment literature, we assume that the firm is budget constrained and can relax its budget constraint by borrowing from a creditor. The creditor offers technology-specific loan contracts to the firm, after which the firm makes its technology choice and subsequent decisions. Capital market imperfections impose financing frictions on the firm. Our analysis contributes to …


Technical Note: Cellular Bucket Brigades, Yun Fong Lim Dec 2011

Technical Note: Cellular Bucket Brigades, Yun Fong Lim

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Workers in a bucket brigade production system perform unproductive travel when they walk to get more work from their colleagues. We introduce a new design of bucket brigades to reduce unproductive travel. Under the new design, each worker works on one side of an aisle when he proceeds in one direction and works on the other side when he proceeds in the reverse direction. We propose simple rules for workers to share work under the new design and find a sufficient condition for the system to self-balance. Numerical examples suggest that the improvement in throughput by the new design can …


Integrating Long-Term And Short-Term Contracting In Beef Supply Chains, Onur Boyabatli, Paul R. Kleindorfer, Stephen R. Koontz Oct 2011

Integrating Long-Term And Short-Term Contracting In Beef Supply Chains, Onur Boyabatli, Paul R. Kleindorfer, Stephen R. Koontz

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper analyzes the optimal procurement, processing, and production decisions of a meat-processing company (hereafter, a "packer") in a beef supply chain. The packer processes fed cattle to produce two beef products, program (premium) boxed beef and commodity boxed beef, in fixed proportions, but with downward substitution of the premium product for the commodity product. The packer can source input (fed cattle) from a contract market, where long-term contracts are signed in advance of the required delivery time, and from a spot market on the spot day. Contract prices are taken to be of a general window form, linear in …


Integrated Risk Management: A Conceptual Framework With Research Overview And Applications In Practice, Panos Kouvelis, Lingxiu Dong, Onur Boyabatli, Rong Li Oct 2011

Integrated Risk Management: A Conceptual Framework With Research Overview And Applications In Practice, Panos Kouvelis, Lingxiu Dong, Onur Boyabatli, Rong Li

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This chapter presents an action‐based supply chain risk management framework that has emerged from industry practice and academic research. For practitioners, this conceptual framework can serve as a guideline to devise risk management strategies that suit their specific supply chain environments. For academicians, one can map the research in the growing field of integrated risk management research within the context of this framework, and identify potentially fruitful directions for future research. The framework of supply chain risk management proposes a two‐stage action plan: a planning stage and an execution stage. Risk mitigation strategy has been the main focus of the …


Optimal Investment Under Operational Flexibility, Risk Aversion, And Uncertainty, Michail Chronopoulos, Bert De Reyck, Afzal Siddiqui Aug 2011

Optimal Investment Under Operational Flexibility, Risk Aversion, And Uncertainty, Michail Chronopoulos, Bert De Reyck, Afzal Siddiqui

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Traditional real options analysis addresses the problem of investment under uncertainty assuming a risk-neutral decision maker and complete markets. In reality, however, decision makers are often risk averse and markets are incomplete. We confirm that risk aversion lowers the probability of investment and demonstrate how this effect can be mitigated by incorporating operational flexibility in the form of embedded suspension and resumption options. Although such options facilitate investment, we find that the likelihood of investing is still lower compared to the risk-neutral case. Risk aversion also increases the likelihood that the project will be abandoned, although this effect is less …


Maritime Trade Evolutions And Port City Developments In Asia, X. J. Yang, Joyce M. W. Low, Loon Ching Tang Aug 2011

Maritime Trade Evolutions And Port City Developments In Asia, X. J. Yang, Joyce M. W. Low, Loon Ching Tang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Historically, almost all goods transported worldwide have been carried by sea with the current estimate stands at approximately 90 percent by volume and 70 percent by worth. Maritime industry is an important economic sector as it has a direct impact on the prosperity of a region and/or city. This chapter presents a review on maritime trade evolution in Asia from the thirteenth centuries to the post-World War II, followed by an examination on the contemporary development of some major Asia ports. From the extant port literature, a list of factors affecting port competition and development is identified and reviewed. The …


Valuation Of Risky Projects And Other Illiquid Investments Using Portfolio Selection Models, Janne Gustafsson, Bert De Reyck, Zeger Degraeve, Ahti Salo Jun 2011

Valuation Of Risky Projects And Other Illiquid Investments Using Portfolio Selection Models, Janne Gustafsson, Bert De Reyck, Zeger Degraeve, Ahti Salo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We develop a portfolio selection framework for the valuation of projects and other illiquid investments for an investor who can invest in a portfolio of private, illiquid investment opportunities as well as in securities in financial markets, but who cannot necessarily replicate project cash flows using financial instruments. We demonstrate how project values can be solved using an inverse optimization procedure and prove several general analytical properties for project values. We also provide an illustrative example on the modeling and pricing of multiperiod projects that are characterized by managerial flexibility.


Mixed 0-1 Linear Programs Under Objective Uncertainty: A Completely Positive Representation, Karthik Natarajan, Chung-Piaw Teo, Zhichao Zheng Jun 2011

Mixed 0-1 Linear Programs Under Objective Uncertainty: A Completely Positive Representation, Karthik Natarajan, Chung-Piaw Teo, Zhichao Zheng

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In this paper, we analyze mixed 0-1 linear programs under objective uncertainty. The mean vector and the second moment matrix of the nonnegative objective coefficients is assumed to be known, but the exact form of the distribution is unknown. Our main result shows that computing a tight upper bound on the expected value of a mixed 0-1 linear program in maximization form with random objective is a completely positive program. This naturally leads to semidefinite programming relaxations that are solvable in polynomial time but provide weaker bounds. The result can be extended to deal with uncertainty in the moments and …


Technical Appendix To "Stochastic Capacity Investment And Flexible Vs. Dedicated Technology Choice In Imperfect Capital Markets", Onur Boyabatli May 2011

Technical Appendix To "Stochastic Capacity Investment And Flexible Vs. Dedicated Technology Choice In Imperfect Capital Markets", Onur Boyabatli

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Technical appendix with proofs for the technical statements in the article: Stochastic capacity investment and flexible vs. dedicated technology choice in imperfect capital markets. (2011). Management Science, 57 (12), 2163 - 2179. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1110.1395


Understanding Port Choice Behaviour: A Network Perspective, Loon Ching Tang, Joyce M. W. Low, Shao Wei Lam Mar 2011

Understanding Port Choice Behaviour: A Network Perspective, Loon Ching Tang, Joyce M. W. Low, Shao Wei Lam

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

A novel Network-based Integrated Choice Evaluation (NICE) model is developed to enhance the multinomial logit preference (MNL) model that is widely employed in the existing port choice literature. The NICE model integrates the element of port service network with observational port attributes to identify important quality characteristics on which liner shipping companies base their port choices. An empirical study of the proposed model is conducted through the service schedules of three established liner shipping companies. Results show that port efficiency and scale economies are the more important dimensions influencing liner shipping companies’ selection of major Asian ports. Nevertheless, it is …


Technical Appendix To "Integrating Long-Term And Short-Term Contracting In Beef Supply Chains", Onur Boyabatli, Paul R. Kleindorfer, Stephen R. Koontz Mar 2011

Technical Appendix To "Integrating Long-Term And Short-Term Contracting In Beef Supply Chains", Onur Boyabatli, Paul R. Kleindorfer, Stephen R. Koontz

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Technical appendix with proofs for propositions in the article: Integrating long-term and short-term contracting in beef supply chains. (2011). Management Science, 57 (10), 1771-1787. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1110.1362


Consolidating Or Non-Consolidating Queues: A Game Theoretic Queuing Model With Holding Costs, Kwan Eng Wee, Ananth Iyer Jan 2011

Consolidating Or Non-Consolidating Queues: A Game Theoretic Queuing Model With Holding Costs, Kwan Eng Wee, Ananth Iyer

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We consider a two-server queueing system in which the servers choose their service rate based on the demand and holding cost allocation scheme offered by the demand generating entity. We provide an optimal holding cost allocation scheme that leads to the maximum possible service rate for each of a pooled and a split system. Our results suggest that careful allocation of holding costs can create incentives that enable minimum turnaround times using a common queue.


A Petri Net-Based Approach To Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems Modeling, Y. Geng, A. Lim, H. Ma, Brian Rodrigues Jan 2011

A Petri Net-Based Approach To Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems Modeling, Y. Geng, A. Lim, H. Ma, Brian Rodrigues

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMSs) have been used to provide manufacturing companies with the required capacities and capabilities, when needed. Recognizing (1) the importance of dynamic modeling and visualization in decision making support in RMSs and (2) the limitations of the existing studies, we model RMSs based on Petri net (PN) techniques with focus on the process of reconfiguring system elements while considering constraints and system performance. In response to the modeling difficulties identified, a new formalism of colored timed PNs is introduced. In conjunction with colored tokens and timing in colored PNs and timed PNs, we further define a reconfiguration …