Doctoral Dissertation Research in DRMS: Service-Level Agreements and Supply Chain Coordination

随着互联网零售越来越受欢迎，拉式合同的使用也越来越普遍。拉式合同是指供应商持有库存并将产品直接发货给零售商的任何环境中使用的一组合同？S终端客户。采用这种方法来满足需求的零售商经常面临以最大化利润的方式与供应商签订这些合同的问题。在这篇博士论文研究中，合作者-PI研究了如何设计拉式合同，以便零售商和供应商在选择和构建此类合同时做出更明智的决策。这项研究将从理论和实验上解决这个问题，重点放在拉式合同的一个子集，称为服务水平协议(SLA)。SLA是一种供应链合同，当供应商满足零售商S的一定比例的需求时，零售商向供应商支付奖金。虽然SLA在工业中很常见，但其理论性质和实际性能特征还没有得到广泛的研究。这项工作将确定与其他拉式合同相比，实际中看到的SLA的某些变化是否会为零售商和/或供应商带来最高的利润。这项研究的更广泛影响在于其提高供应链效率的潜力。

As internet retailing increases in popularity, so does the use of pull contracts; a group of contracts used in any setting where the supplier holds the inventory and ships product directly to the retailer?s end customers. Retailers adopting this method of satisfying demand are frequently presented with the problem of constructing these contracts with their suppliers in a way that maximizes profit. In this Doctoral Dissertation research, the co-PI examines the issue of how pull contracts should be designed so as to allow retailers and suppliers to make more informed decisions when choosing and structuring such contracts.The research will address the issue theoretically and experimentally, placing emphasis on one subset of pull contracts called service-level agreements (SLAs). SLAs are a type of supply chain contract where a retailer pays a bonus to its supplier when its supplier satisfies a certain fraction of the retailer?s demand. Though SLAs are very common in industry, their theoretical properties and actual performance characteristics have not been extensively studied. This work will determine if certain variations of SLAs seen in practice result in the highest profit for the retailer and/or supplier compared to other pull contracts.The broader impact of this research is lies in its potential to improve supply chain efficiency.