Collaborative Research: Intra- and Inter-Enterprise Collaborative Procurement

该项目将开发和分析供应链模型，以更好地理解协作对提高供应链中（潜在竞争）企业之间互动的效率和有效性的影响。本课题以协同采购为研究重点，研究目标如下：(1)分析横向企业间协同采购的动力学。通过研究竞争对手之间合作采购背后的潜在经济学，该项目将检验合作对买方和供应商盈利能力的影响，并得出合作对每个参与者都有利的条件。(2)开发企业内部协同采购与物流协调的模型和决策支持工具，同时优化企业不同职能部门的“净到岸成本”。(3)研究需求不确定性下，面对数量折扣，购买者应如何采购。这项研究的成果将用于开发和提供各种本科和研究生课程，涵盖协作供应链中的问题，基本工具和概念，以及基于研究和行业经验开发案例研究。总的来说，这些领域的进步有望极大地提高供应链各个阶段的效率。企业内部和企业之间的协同采购不仅可以减少供应链的低效率，还可以增加社会福利。在零售业等占经济总量40%的行业，这样的改善将是显著的。

This project will develop and analyze supply chain models to better understand the impact of collaboration on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of interactions between (potentially competitive) enterprises in supply chains. With a primary focus on collaborative procurement, the research goals of this project include the following: (1) Analyze the dynamics of horizontal inter-enterprise collaborative procurement. By studying the underlying economics behind collaborative procurement among competitor firms, the project will examine the effects of collaboration on buyer and supplier profitability, and derive conditions under which collaboration will be beneficial to each participant. (2) Develop models and decision support tools for coordinating intra-enterprise collaborative procurement with logistics, to simultaneously optimize the "net landed cost" across different functions of an enterprise. (3) Study how buyers should procure in the face of quantity discounts under demand uncertainty. The outcomes of this research will be used to develop and offer a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses covering the issues, and basic tools and concepts in collaborative supply chains, as well as to develop case studies based on research and industry experiences.Overall, advances in these areas promise tremendously improved efficiencies in all stages of a supply chain. Intra- and inter-enterprise collaborative procurement would not only decrease the inefficiencies in the supply chain but also increase the social welfare. In industries like retailing, which represents about 40% of the economy, such improvements would be remarkable.