Integrated operational and financial hedging in outsourced/offshored supply chains

在几乎所有行业和地理区域，制造商都有一个共同的目标：通过降低成本来提高盈利能力。为了显著降低总体成本，许多公司与成本低得多的国家的供应商签订了合同，帮助他们以类似国内设施的一小部分成本获得大量工人。虽然大幅节省的诱惑是不可否认的，使用离岸设施几乎是不可避免的，但离岸外包/外包所涉及的风险是巨大的。其中，最大的风险是对离岸外包将节省多少成本的预期。隐性成本的一个典型例子是货币升值的影响，这可能对离岸努力的成功产生巨大影响。此外，许多突如其来的事件，如恐怖袭击、政治不稳定和自然灾害，比以往任何时候都唤醒了管理者寻找方法来缓解外包风险。在这个研究项目中，我们将调查风险和成本效率之间的反向关系。我们的研究在未来五年分为两个阶段。在第一阶段，我们专注于应对汇率和产品需求的不确定性，目标是研究战略产能规划以及运营和财务对冲如何能够减轻与需求和汇率相关的风险。预计将得出理论结果来解释运营和金融套期保值的效果。在第二阶段，我们将把第一阶段的研究从两阶段问题扩展到多阶段问题，以纳入需求和汇率不确定性的动态。目标是提出一个最优的长期产能组合。此外，供应商所在低成本国家的自然灾害和政治事件等罕见事件也将被考虑在内。将开发基于情景的大规模随机动态规划模型。分析模型和优化模型的结合将在理解能力规划的重要性以及短期和长期业务和财务对冲的作用方面提供补充结果。

Across virtually all industries and geographic regions, manufacturers share one common goal: to increase profitability by decreasing costs. To significantly reduce their overall costs, many firms have contracted with suppliers located in much lower-cost countries to help them access a large pool of workers at a fraction of the cost of similar domestic facilities. While the allure of dramatic savings is undeniable and the use of offshore facilities is virtually unavoidable, risks involved in offshoring/outsourcing are significant. Among all, the greatest risk is the expectations about how much the savings from offshoring will be. A typical example of hidden costs is the impact of currency revaluation, which can have a dramatic effect on the success of offshoring endeavors. In addition, a lot of unexpected and sudden events such as terrorist strikes, political instability and natural disasters have awakened managers as never before to find ways to mitigate outsourcing risks. In this research program, we will investigate the inverse relationship between the risks and cost efficiency. Our research is divided into two phases in the next five years. In the first phase, we focus on coping with uncertainties in exchange rates and product demand and the objective is to study how strategic capacity planning as well as operational and financial hedging can mitigate the risks related to demand and exchange rates. Theoretical results are expected to be derived to explain the effect of operational and financial hedging. In the second phase, we will extend the research in the first phase from two-stage problems to multi-stage problems to incorporate the dynamics in the uncertainty of demand and exchange rate. The objective is to propose an optimal long-term capacity portfolio. In addition, rare events such as natural disasters and political events in the low-cost countries where suppliers are located will also be considered. Scenario-based large-scale stochastic dynamic programming models will be developed. The combination of analytical and optimization models will provide complementary results in understanding the importance of capacity planning and the roles of operational and financial hedging in short- and long-terms.