CAREER: Enhancing E-Commerce and Service Systems by Embracing Consumer Flexibility

这项教师早期职业发展计划（Career）资助将通过设计更有效的电子商务和服务系统，拥抱和利用消费者的灵活性，为促进国家繁荣和经济福利做出贡献。消费者灵活性指的是消费者明确地愿意接受各种各样的选择，以换取奖励或折扣。零售和服务部门的两个例子包括：(i)在线零售和旅游中的不透明产品，消费者愿意购买一件颜色未知的衣服或前往一个未指定的目的地；（ii）食品杂货配送和医疗预约等预定服务中的大时间窗口，消费者愿意在多个时间段中的一个接受服务。该研究从根本上使消费者和企业受益，因为它为消费者提供了折扣灵活的选择，同时降低了销售产品和服务的运营成本。该奖项支持对电子商务和服务系统中理解、嵌入和拥抱消费者灵活性的基础工具的研究，重点关注需求和供应两个方面。整合研究和教育的计划包括进一步发展NYC运营日会议，通过该项目提供的演讲机会、指导和资助，以及课程丰富、本科生和博士生的指导和教育，来吸引博士生。为了充分利用消费者的灵活性，研究人员和从业人员需要一套新的工具来管理具有灵活选项的需求，并将消费者的灵活性转化为运营效率。从需求的角度来看，这个项目提供了一个计算上易于处理的框架，用于整合消费者的灵活性。由于弹性期权的估值与结构特殊的传统期权存在一定的相关性，以往的模型和算法都不适用于该领域。本研究将开发新的分析方法和易于处理的近似方法，用于在选择模型中对消费者行为进行建模，从而产生新的定价分析和工具，以解决灵活选择所带来的固有数学困难。从供应的角度来看，经典的运营模式将得到扩展，以纳入消费者的灵活性。在库存管理方面，该项目将开发量化和利用消费者灵活性的算法，以更好地平衡库存并降低供应链成本。对于定期服务，如杂货配送，将开发新的模型来指导时间窗口的设计，有效地管理容量并确保高效的车辆路线。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) grant will contribute to the advancement of national prosperity and economic welfare by designing more efficient e-commerce and service systems that embrace and leverage consumer flexibility. Consumer flexibility refers to a consumer's explicit willingness to receive one of an assortment of offered options in exchange for a reward or discount. Two examples in the retail and service sectors include (i) opaque products in online retail and travel, where consumers are willing to purchase an article of clothing of unknown color or travel to an unspecified destination, and (ii) large time windows in scheduled services such as grocery delivery and medical appointments, where consumers are willing to receive service in one of multiple time slots. The research fundamentally benefits consumers and firms by providing discounted flexible options to consumers while reducing operational costs of selling products and services. This award supports research on foundational tools for understanding, embedding, and embracing consumer flexibility in e-commerce and service systems, focusing on both the demand and supply perspectives. The plan to integrate research and education includes further developing the NYC Operations Day conference to embrace doctoral students via presentation opportunities, mentorship, and funding from this project, as well as course enrichment and the mentoring and education of undergraduate and doctoral students.In order to fully embrace consumer flexibility, researchers and practitioners require a new set of tools for managing demand with flexible options and for converting consumer flexibility into operational efficiency. From the demand perspective, this project provides a computationally tractable framework for incorporating consumer flexibility. Since the valuations for flexible options are correlated with the traditional options with special structure, previous models and algorithms in this domain do not apply. This research will develop new analytical methods and tractable approximation approaches for modeling consumer behavior in choice models, leading to new pricing analysis and tools that address the inherent mathematical difficulties introduced by flexible options. From the supply perspective, classical operational models will be extended to incorporate consumer flexibility. In inventory management, this project will develop algorithms that quantify and leverage consumer flexibility to better balance inventory and reduce supply chain costs. For scheduled services, such as grocery delivery, new models will be developed to guide the design of time windows that effectively manage capacity and ensure efficient vehicle routes.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.