CAREER: Coordination Issues in Retail Operations Management

这个学院早期职业发展(CALEAR)项目的研究目标是开发包含产品多样性、产品线选择和定价等问题的运营管理模式。将考虑两个问题：品种规划和产品线选择。在分类计划中，零售商根据每种产品提供的款式数量和库存数量做出决定。这个问题很难解决，因为产品之间存在替代的可能性。将开发包含需求替代的随机库存模型。在产品线选择问题中，零售商必须从一组潜在产品中选择一个产品子集，并确定每种产品的价格。这项研究将采取随机的方法，假设消费者的偏好不是确切知道的。对于这两个问题，研究将从首席调查员开发的随机模型开始。这些模型将被扩展以考虑：(1)货架空间和/或库存限制；(2)作为产品种类水平的函数的需求率；(3)不同细分市场的偏好；以及(4)零售商/制造商的协调。这一职业发展计划的教育目标是扩大学生的教育经验，将对服务部门重要的问题包括在内，如供应链管理。该教育计划由三部分组成：供应链管理研究生课程；研究生对所述问题的研究项目；以及本科生研究机会。如果成功，这项研究将导致开发模型和决策规则，以解决联合产品线选择、定价和库存管理问题。这些模型将提供易于实施的决策规则，零售商可以使用这些规则来改进对产品多样性的管理，使零售商在满足各种客户偏好的同时降低库存水平。此外，这些模型将为零售商/制造商协调在管理产品多样性方面的价值提供有用的见解。

The research goal of this Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER)project is to develop operations management models that incorporate issues such as product variety, product line selection and pricing. Two problems will be considered: assortment planning and product line selection. In assortment planning, the retailer makes decisions regarding the number of styles of each product to offer and how much inventory to carry. This problem is difficult because of the possibility of substitution between products. Stochastic inventory models that incorporate demand substitution will be developed. In the product line selection problem, the retailer must select a subset of products from a set of potential products and determine the price of each product. This research will take a stochastic approach, assuming preferences of consumers are not known exactly. For both problems, the research will start with stochastic models developed by the Principal Investigator. These models will be extended to consider: (1) shelf-space and/or inventory constraints; (2) demand rates that are a function of the level of product variety; (3) preferences that vary by market segment; and (4) tailers/manufacturer coordination. The educational goal of this CAREER development plan is to expand the educational experiences of students to include issues of importance to the service sector, such as supply chain management. The educational plan consists of three components: a graduate course in supply chain management; graduate student research projects on the problems described; and undergraduate research opportunities.If successful, this research will lead to the development of models and decision rules for addressing the joint product line selection, pricing and inventory management problem. These models will provide easily implementable decision rules that can be used by retailers to improve their management of product variety, allowing retailers to reduce inventory levels while satisfying a variety of customer preferences. In addition, these models will provide useful insights into the value of retailer/manufacturer coordination in managing product variety.