We consider a two-stage make-to-order production system characterized by limited production capacity and tight order due dates. We want to make joint decisions on order acceptance and scheduling to maximize the total net revenue. The problem is computationally intractable. In view of the fact...

The goal of block mining is to obtain a set of genes that contain dependency among gene relationships. Such blocks without overlapping of genes can be further merged to form a new chromosome and the quality of the new chromosome can be greatly improved. Based on this concept, we propose a novel...

Chinese manufacturing has recently been plagued by a raft of product safety problems such as melamine-tainted milk, lead-tainted toys, toxic toothpaste, defective tyres, and fake medicines. A probable cause of these incidents is a lack of business ethics in the suppliers concerned. In the...

As manufacturing firms increasingly realize that supplier performance is crucial to their establishing and maintaining competitive advantage, supplier development has been a subject of considerable research in supply chain management. We develop and test a path model to explore how supplier...

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...

Due-window assignment and production scheduling are important issues in operations management. In this study we investigate the problem of common due-window assignment and scheduling of deteriorating jobs and a maintenance activity simultaneously on a single-machine. We assume that the...

We consider a two-stage newsvendor model of a sub-industry in which suppliers have short lead-time capacity to produce goods for retailers that are selling non-identical products. We argue that the inventory and supply risks of the newsvendors due to demand uncertainty can be pooled and shared...

In this paper we develop a supply contract for a two-echelon manufacturer–retailer supply chain with a bidirectional option, which may be exercised as either a call option or a put option. Under the bidirectional option contract, we derive closed-form expressions for the retailer’s optimal...

This paper presents an empirical study on the multidimensional relationships between supplier management practices and firm operational performance. Specifically, we focus on three supplier management practices, namely strategic long-term relationship, supplier assessment, and logistics...

With rising environmental concerns from consumers and stakeholder groups, environmental management has become an important responsibility for today's fashion and textiles manufacturers. The production of fashion and textiles related products often requires high levels of energy and water...