A production control system (PCS) can be considered an information-processing organization (IPO). The performance of different production control systems has been studied intensively. However, their decision-making efficiency has not drawn much attention. The amount of information in a...

In this study, we consider quality improvement in a given segment of the market, shared by two supplier-manufacturer supply chains which offer a given product at the same price but compete on quality. The mechanism on the selection of supply chain structures and quality improvement strategies of...

Data communication service has an important influence on e-commerce. The key challenge for the users is, ultimately, to select a suitable service provider. It is a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem where the user must weigh up the relative importance of factors such as costs and...

Many retailers diversify their supply disruption risk by sourcing from multiple suppliers. While a retailer's sourcing strategy impacts the profit of the supply chain, the pricing strategies of suppliers influence all aspects of the supply chain. In this paper we investigate the sourcing...

In this paper, we model the supply chain network as a closed Jackson queuing network and apply the properties of the closed Jackson network to explain some properties of a supply chain network. Under certain conditions, a simple throughput function that is the function of only the numbers of...

To attract and keep customers, companies, especially those in e-business, are increasingly offering free shipping to buyers whose order sizes exceed the free shipping quantity. In this paper, given the supplier offers free shipping and the retailer faces stochastic demand, we determine the...

Facing such issues as demand uncertainty and in- and cross-channel competition, managers of today's retail chains are keen to find optimal strategies that help their firms to adapt to the increasingly competitive business environment. To help retail managers to address their challenges, we...

There is a broad consensus that mankind must reduce carbon emissions to mitigate global warming. It is generally accepted that carbon emission trading is one of the most effective market-based mechanisms to curb the amount of carbon emissions. This paper investigates how firms manage carbon...

The advent of electronic books (e-books) has significantly impacted the publishing industry in recent years. The prevalence of e-books has prompted many publishers to reconsider their distribution channels for new titles. They need to decide whether to sell the e-book version of new titles. We...