This paper generalizes Porter’s notion of the value chain for the analysis of service industries. The generalization entails that the flow and the physical transformation and assembly of goods that are characteristic of manufacturing are generalized into flows and transformation of data and...

This paper studies the consequence of an imprecise recall of the price by the consumers in the Bertrand price competition model for a homogeneous good. It is shown that firms can exploit this weakness and charge prices above the competitive price. This markup increases for rougher recall of the...

We consider hedonic games with separable preferences, and explore the existence of stable coalition structures if only individual deviations are allowed.For two natural subdomains of separable preferences, namely preference domains based on (1) aversion to enemies and (2) appreciation of...

In this paper we are especially interested how to optimize the production/inventory control for a manufacturer of sweets, under the following circumstances: short production lead times in combination with an intermittent demand pattern for the so-called B-taste items. As for A-taste items a...

In this paper we discuss a real-life case study in the optimization of the logistics network for the collection of containers from end-of-life vehicle dismantlers in the Netherlands.Advanced planning concepts like dynamic assignment of dismantlers to logistic service providers are analyzed by a...

Short-term performance of a production management system for make-to-stock factories may be quantified through the service rate per shift; long-term performance through the average monthly work in process (WIP). This may yield, for example, that WIP is minimized, while the probability of the...

This paper addresses a highly challenging scheduling problem in the field of printed circuit board (PCB) assembly systems using Surface Mounting Devices (SMD). After describing some challenging optimization sub-problems relating to the heads of multi-head surface mounting placement machines, we...

Background: General Practitioners have limited means to compete. As quality is hard to observe by patients, GPs have incentives to signal quality by using instruments patients perceive as quality.<br/>Objectives: We investigate whether GPs exhibit different prescribing behavior (volume and value of...

This paper introduces a simple extensive form pricing game.The Bertrand outcome is a Nash equilibrium outcome in this game, but it is not necessarily subgame perfect.The subgame perfect equilibrium outcome features the following comparative static properties.The more similar firms are, the...