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published_or_final_version / abstract / Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

In Chapter 4, we consider a supply chain which consists of a manufacturer, a logistics service provider (LSP) and a retailer. The LSP provides the emergency replenishment, financing and logistics services. The advent of the LSP changes the structure and incentive in the traditional one-supplier-one-retailer channel. We develop a framework of 3-player game to investigate the dynamics and competitive behaviors with multiple decision sequences. We provide the explicit equilibria for different decision sequences and demonstrate the possibility that the LSP and the manufacturer collude to create price increment, which squeezes out the retailer. Whereas, the triple marginalization effect is alleviated. / Supply chain coordination and associated contracts have been an active research area for supply chain management research. Yet, little has been done in addressing robustness matters of design, evaluation, and implementation for these coordination contracts. In chapter 2 and 3, we develop a consistency framework for supply chain contracts and classify a number of well-studied contracts into groups. We demonstrate with examples that coordination contracts can be evaluated by their consistency properties. Based on precise mathematical definitions and subsequently developed structural properties and management insights, we are not only able to measure the goodness of supply contracts but also to reveal the nature of their coordination. Our findings open an avenue for design, evaluation and implementation of supply chain coordination contracts. / Lu, Meng. / Adviser: Houmin Yan. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 73-06, Section: B, page: . / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 138-147). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese.

In light of all these, we study in this dissertation the application of the classical Mean-Variance Theory in finance for supply chain models. In mathematical finance, pioneered by the Nobel laureate Harry Markowitz in the 1950s, the Mean-Variance Theory has been an important theory for risk control in portfolio management. Under the Mean-Variance Theory, we can quantify the profit and risk in a portfolio investment by the expected return and variance of return, respectively. The Mean-Variance Theory has been demonstrated to be very applicable in practice. Based on the spirit of the Mean-Variance Theory, many optimal investment policies in finance are developed. / In the supply chain management literature under the stochastic environment, most of the proposed policies target at improving the supply chain's efficiency in terms of the expected cost reduction or the expected profit improvement. However, the performance measure with an expected value alone lacks precision when the corresponding variance is high. It also ignores the risk preferences of individual supply chain's decision makers. In order to provide a tailor-fit optimal decision-making policy for the decision maker, it is desirable to have a systematic and quantifiable measure for risk preference. / In this dissertation, using the idea of the Mean-Variance Theory, together with the Bayesian Decision Theory and the other optimization techniques, we study, analyze and build various supply chain management models, which include the inventory problems, the supply chain coordinating buyback contracts, and the optimal ordering policies with information updates. / This dissertation is divided into two parts and each part contains several chapters. Each chapter can be treated as a self-contained paper and the Mean-Variance Theory has been applied in each one of them. Throughout this dissertation, short example cases and numerical studies with computer simulations are included to illustrate the applicability of the models. From the studies in this dissertation, we can see that the classical Mean-Variance Theory can provide a systematic framework for the scientific studies of risk and uncertainty control in stochastic supply chain models in the information age. Moreover, the importance of risk control in supply chain management should not be neglected. / by Tsan-Ming Choi. / "September 2002." / Mentors: Duan Li; Houmin Yan. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 63-10, Section: B, page: 4844. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 206-225). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest dissertations and theses, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

Xu Xiaolin. / "August 2006." / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 149-156). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese.

Song Xiping. / "August 2006." / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 136-142). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese.

Wang Tong. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 59-61). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgement --- p.iii / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2 --- Literature Review --- p.9 / Chapter 3 --- Evaluation of Cost and Service --- p.13 / Chapter 3.1 --- Preliminaries --- p.13 / Chapter 3.2 --- Evaluation --- p.15 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Cost Function --- p.15 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Expression of Time-window Ready Rate --- p.16 / Chapter 4 --- Optimization of the Inventory Policy --- p.19 / Chapter 4.1 --- "Monotonicity of Cost C(s, S)" --- p.19 / Chapter 4.2 --- Optimization Algorithms - Case(i) --- p.20 / Chapter 4.3 --- Optimization Algorithm ´ؤ Case(ii) --- p.27 / Chapter 5 --- Heuristic Method for Case(ii) --- p.30 / Chapter 5.1 --- Approximation of Q(S) --- p.30 / Chapter 5.2 --- Algorithm --- p.33 / Chapter 6 --- Comparison with the ADI Model --- p.34 / Chapter 6.1 --- The ADI Model --- p.35 / Chapter 6.1.1 --- Cost Function --- p.35 / Chapter 6.1.2 --- Service Rate --- p.37 / Chapter 6.1.3 --- Optimal Policy --- p.37 / Chapter 6.2 --- Numerical Comparison --- p.37 / Chapter 7 --- Numerical Experiments --- p.40 / Chapter 7.1 --- Cost Impact --- p.40 / Chapter 7.1.1 --- Cost Impact of Ready Rate --- p.41 / Chapter 7.1.2 --- Cost Impact of Time-window --- p.41 / Chapter 7.1.3 --- Cost Impact of Other Parameters --- p.45 / Chapter 7.2 --- Performance of the Algorithms --- p.46 / Chapter 7.3 --- Numerical Study of Heuristic --- p.48 / Chapter 8 --- Conclusion --- p.50 / Chapter A --- Some omitted proofs --- p.52 / Chapter A.1 --- Proof of Lemma 1 --- p.52 / Chapter A.2 --- Proof of Lemma 10 --- p.53 / Chapter A.3 --- Proof of Lemma 12 --- p.55 / Chapter A.4 --- Proof of Lemma 15 --- p.56 / Bibliography --- p.61

Logistics makes extensive use of human and material resources to achieve a target level of customer service at the lowest possible cost. It has been recognized as a major key to success in commerce and industry, and continues to evolve radically and grow in importance in recent years. Warehousing, as one of the most costly elements of logistics, is often the central operation in most logistics networks. Its successful management is critical in terms of both cost and service. In this thesis, two problem areas in warehouse logistics are studied: stock loading and order picking. Stock loading is an essential operation in modern logistics. Improvement on container capacity utilization and loading efficiency significantly reduces costs. For a given set of boxes in different sizes and an unlimited number of identical containers, the basic cargo loading problem is to determine the minimum number of containers required. The problem is proven NP-hard. To tackle this problem, a Tabu search optimization with a tree-based cargo loading algorithm as its inner heuristic is proposed. This approach has flexibility in taking different box conditions into consideration, and can find better solutions on average than other recent meta- or heuristic algorithms. Decreasing order sizes and increasing fuel costs provide a strong incentive for the inner-city truck loading operation to utilize container space more efficiently in transporting goods to multiple clients during one trip. This considers not only traditional loading constraints, but also multi-drop requirements. A wallbuilding heuristics based on a binary tree data structure is proposed to handle these side constraints. A dynamic space decomposition approach, together with a repacking and space amalgamation strategy, permits an efficient and effective loading plan. Order picking, one of the most critical warehousing operations, is the second problem studied in this thesis. An analytical approximation model is proposed based on probability modeling and queueing network theory applied to a synchronized zone picker-to-part order picking system with different routing and ABC-class inventory storage policies. The numerical results are compared and validated via simulation. The resulting model can therefore be usefully applied in the design and selection process of order picking systems. The routing versus storage issues are further investigated with a simulation model. This extends the existing research by evaluating multiple routing and storage policies under varying operating conditions. Results show that the midpoint, return and traversal routing policies generally perform best when paired with perimeter, across-aisle and within-aisle storage strategies, respectively. Yet performance is indeed dependent on demand patterns, zone sizes, batch sizes and order sizes. At first glance, order picking and stock loading operation seem to pursue different objectives. However, they are two related operations conducted sequentially from internal to the outbound side of warehousing. An efficient order picking system is a precondition for an effective loading operation at the shipping dock, especially when multiple orders need to be selected for consolidation in shipment. The proposed loading algorithms and the order picking system performance evaluation models can be used to further study the effective integration of these two functions. / published_or_final_version / Mathematics / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy