GOALI/Collaborative Research: Matching Demand and Supply Through Price

最近的商业趋势和消费者行为建模的进步清楚地表明，对商品和服务的需求，以及反过来，公司的利润和客户的满意度，在很大程度上受到价格和交货期决策的影响。大量的实践和文献表明，有效价格和提前期报价在影响需求、管理拥堵和改善客户服务方面具有潜力，然而，为价格、提前期、订单选择和库存决策提供集成决策框架的研究还很少。提前期报价的基本权衡在于报价提前期短和实现提前期之间的折衷。同样，价格决策的权衡在于报出低价以吸引客户和实现盈利。理想情况下，公司应该有全球视野，协调其在价格、交货期报价、订单接受和库存方面的决策，以提高盈利能力。此外，如果决策是由不同的单位独立做出的，公司将受益于通过设置正确的激励来协调这些决策。我们在这个项目中的目标是使用集成的决策模型，并了解(动态)设定价格和交货期以最大化利润和改善客户服务的潜力。特别是，我们将研究和分析(I)通过动态价格和/或交货期报价提高绩效(利润和客户满意度)的因素，(Ii)以分散的方式(即由不同的实体，如营销和制造部门)制定价格和交货期决策的影响，(Iii)对订单、生产和库存决策的影响。它将导致新的公式和理论贡献，以及对实时价格和交货期报价的实用见解和算法。研究活动将与一系列教育活动相结合，以促进研究生和本科生以及行业专业人员的培训和学习。价格和交付期决策的改进具有实现利润最大化、降低拥堵相关成本和提高客户满意度的巨大潜力。在这个时代，越来越多的公司正在转向按订单生产/按订单生产的模式，服务行业以惊人的速度增长，有效定价和交货期报价的影响可能是巨大的。

Recent business trends and advances in consumer behavior modeling have clearly shown that demand for goods and services, and in turn, the profits of companies and the satisfaction of their customers, are significantly shaped by price and lead time decisions. Numerous examples from practice as well as the literature have shown the potential of effective price and lead time quotation to influence demand, manage congestion, and improve customer service; however, studies that provide an integrated decision making framework for price, lead time, order selection, and inventory decisions is lacking.The fundamental tradeoff in lead time quotation is between quoting short lead times and attaining them. Similarly, the tradeoff in price decisions is between quoting low prices to attract customers and achieving profitability. Ideally, a firm should take a global perspective and coordinate its decisions on price, lead time quotation, order acceptance, and inventory for increased profitability. In addition, if the decisions are made independently by different units, the firm would benefit from coordinating these decisions by setting the right incentives.Our objective in this project is to employ integrated decision making models and understand the potential for (dynamically) setting prices and lead times to maximize profits and improve customer service. In particular, we will study and analyze (i) the factors that affect the performance improvement (in profits and customer satisfaction) through dynamic price and/or lead time quotation, (ii) the impact of making price and lead time decisions in a decentralized fashion (i.e., by different entities such as marketing and manufacturing divisions), (iii) the implications for the management of orders, production, and inventory decisions.The proposed research is expected to have a number of broader impacts for research, industry, society, and education. It will result in novel formulations and theoretical contributions as well as practical insights and algorithms for real-time price and lead time quotation. The research activities will be integrated to a range of educational activities to promote training and learning by graduate and undergraduate students and industry professionals. Improvements in price and lead time decisions have significant potential to maximize profits, reduce congestion related costs, and improve customer satisfaction. In an age when more and more companies are moving towards make-to-order/build-to-order models and the service sector is growing at an astounding rate, the impact of effective pricing and lead time quotation can be tremendous.