Collaborative Research: Optimization Approach to Collaborative Games in Supply Chain Management

供应链协作中最重要的问题之一是参与企业如何分担成本和收益。这样的问题自然可以用合作博弈论中的概念来分析。本课题主要研究几个基本的合作供应链博弈问题。这些合作博弈的各种相关关键问题将被研究，例如，核心的存在，核心分配的计算，核心分配对成本参数的敏感性等。这些合作博弈往往是多阶段的，涉及需求/供给的不确定性和复杂的成本结构。供应链博弈的这些明显特征带来了巨大的挑战。对这些博弈的研究需要各种新的和有趣的优化模型。因此，需要开发先进的优化技术和算法来分析这些合作博弈。如果成功，这个项目将提高我们在优化、合作博弈和供应链管理方面的知识。该项目开发的优化技术和算法不仅有助于分析合作供应链博弈，而且有助于加深我们对经典供应链优化模型的理解。此外，该项目将为企业提供指导方针，以解决供应链协作中的成本/收益分配问题，并最终帮助它们提高供应链的效率。

One of the most important issues in supply chain collaboration is how the participating firms share the cost and benefit. Such an issue can be naturally analyzed using concepts from the cooperative game theory. This project focuses on several fundamental cooperative supply chain games. A variety of relevant key issues for these cooperative games will be investigated, e.g., the existence of the core, computation of core allocations, sensitivity of core allocations to cost parameters, etc. These cooperative games are often multi-stage in nature, and involve demand/supply uncertainties and complex cost structures. These distinct features of supply chain games impose significant challenges. Studies on these games necessitate a variety of new and interesting optimization models. In response, advanced optimization techniques and algorithms need to be developed to analyze these cooperative games. If successful, this project will advance our knowledge in optimization, cooperative games, and supply chain management. The optimization techniques and algorithms developed from this project will be useful not only in analyzing cooperative supply chain games, but also in deepening our understanding of classical supply chain optimization models. Furthermore, this project will provide firms with guidelines to address the cost/benefit allocation issues in supply chain collaboration and ultimately help them improve the efficiency of their supply chains.