Omega-international Journal of Management Science最新文献

{"title":"Planning container flows through the Eurasian rail network: Managing ad-hoc demand under limited capacity","authors":"Jing Shan ,&nbsp;Jörn Schönberger","doi":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103395","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103395","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In the post-COVID era, supply chain viability (SCV) has gained significant attention, requiring supply chains to be both resilient and adaptable to unforeseen disruptions. The Eurasian rail freight presents a viable alternative to complement traditional maritime shipping routes in times of disruption. A surge in ad hoc demand for Eurasian rail freight presents challenges to the network’s limited capacity and complex coordination across railway systems, exceeding the limits of current manual planning. Furthermore, converting the Eurasian rail freight system from a subsidy-driven model to a revenue-funded transport system is urgent. While revenue management plays a crucial role in optimizing transport networks, this area has received significantly less attention in the intercontinental rail freight industry compared to the airline sector. This paper develops the Revenue Management-Intercontinental Scheduled Service Network Design (RM-ISSND) model, a decision support system that aims to optimize revenue in intercontinental rail freight transport for ad hoc demands. The model supports intercontinental rail freight planning by identifying the most profitable ad hoc shipments while rejecting those that do not contribute to maximizing total revenue and are better suited for maritime or air transport. The RM-ISSND model also facilitates a shift from block routing (all containers in an order follow the same path), which is commonly used in Eurasian rail freight, to a new operational principle with free routing (containers in an order are free to be routed along different paths), enhancing both efficiency and profitability. Experiments show that prioritizing transit times between 27 and 35 days in the existing Eurasian rail freight network yields higher profits, underscoring the need to improve border crossing and main transit times to attract more time-sensitive ad hoc orders.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19529,"journal":{"name":"Omega-international Journal of Management Science","volume":"138 ","pages":"Article 103395"},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2025-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144678924","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Robust de novo programming under different uncertainty sets and its application to the renewable energy sector","authors":"Noureddine Kouaissah","doi":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103389","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103389","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper proposes robust models of de novo programming (R-DNP) using cardinality-constrained robustness with interval-based, ellipsoidal, and norm-based uncertainty sets. R-DNP has not been researched or explored, and we aim to fill this gap in the literature. In particular, we develop the robust counterpart of the weighted DNP (W-DNP), Chebyshev DNP (C-DNP), and extended DNP (E-DNP) models to incorporate different uncertainty sets and decision-makers’ preferences. Methodologically, the proposed approach extends the conventional DNP model to solve uncertain coefficients for each decision variable on the left-hand side of each objective function and on the total budget, overcoming the limitations of the current multicriteria solution procedure of the DNP approach. The proposed methods provide decision-makers with more flexibility to express their level of conservatism and preferences by setting priority weights and aspiration levels. The proposed method’s usefulness over the standard DNP is demonstrated by providing an illustrative example. Moreover, we validate the proposed formulations for solving real-world problems through a hypothetical application: optimizing onshore wind farm locations in Morocco. The work’s results confirm the validity of the proposed methodologies, showing that they can assist decision-makers in determining the optimal system design for sustainable electricity generation under uncertain conditions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19529,"journal":{"name":"Omega-international Journal of Management Science","volume":"138 ","pages":"Article 103389"},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2025-07-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144678923","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Optimal production, fuel economy investment and credit trading decisions under dual-credit policy","authors":"Zhenxiao Wang ,&nbsp;Fen Xu ,&nbsp;Li Xiao ,&nbsp;Peng Yang","doi":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103375","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103375","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We study a production system that produces FVs and NEVs during one selling season under the dual-credit policy (DCP), which is issued to reduce the greenhouse emissions generated from production. One specific feature of our model is that production generates two credits, either positive or negative, and DCP requires nonnegative credits at the end of the selling season and penalizes the negative credits. We show that the optimal production, fuel economy investment, and credit trading decisions depend on the initial capability of generating credits. Based on the optimal decisions, we find that DCP promotes the production of automakers who sell credits and reduces the production of automakers who purchase credits. We next discuss various factors affecting the optimal decisions and the effectiveness of DCP. In particular, a high initial capability to generate positive credits induces a high profit and large production quantity. A high credit purchasing price induces a low profit and a small credit trading volume. However, the optimal fuel economy decision and the credit trading decision are non-monotone in the initial capability to generate credits, and the production quantity and the fuel economy investment are non-monotone in the credit purchasing price.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19529,"journal":{"name":"Omega-international Journal of Management Science","volume":"138 ","pages":"Article 103375"},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2025-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144611536","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"To adopt or not? The impacts of “Try-Now-Pay-Later” on platform markets","authors":"Shuxiao Sun ,&nbsp;He Liu ,&nbsp;Jinrong Zhu ,&nbsp;Shouyang Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103390","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103390","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>“Try-Now-Pay-Later” (TNPL), which combines “Try Before You Pay” (TBYP) and “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL), is a business model innovation launched by some platforms such as Klarna and Affirm in collaboration with retailers. It allows consumers to place an order for free and provides consumers with a free experience period to assess the product fit before finishing the payment. Under TNPL, cash flow occurs within platform markets (including platforms, retailers, and consumers), influencing purchasing decisions of consumers and operational decisions of platforms and retailers. This paper develops a game-theoretic model to investigate the impact of TNPL on platform operations in a market where a retailer sells through a platform. The retailer determines the retail price and pays a commission fee to the platform for each product sold, and either the retailer or consumers pay(s) for the return freight. The results show that (1) TNPL can increase both the retailer’s retail price and the platform’s commission rate, no matter who bears the return freight. (2) Compared to the traditional model, the retailer is most likely to benefit the most from TNPL, followed by consumers, with the platform benefiting the least. (3) If the retailer’s proficiency in handling returns is not significantly greater than that of consumers, especially when the proportion of defaulting consumers is larger and the opportunity cost of cash is lower, all three parties are better off when the return shipping cost is borne by consumers. (4) TNPL generates Pareto improvements when consumer utility enhancement is significant, the product matching rate is high, the proportion of defaulting consumers is small, and the cash opportunity cost is low. Furthermore, the impact of TNPL on competing platforms and retailers depends on the relative competitive advantages gained through consumers’ utility improvements. Our findings offer valuable insights for platforms and retailers on how to optimize their operational strategies to effectively leverage TNPL, thereby enhancing both business performance and social welfare.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19529,"journal":{"name":"Omega-international Journal of Management Science","volume":"138 ","pages":"Article 103390"},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2025-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144656678","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A branch-and-price algorithm for the parallel-line lot-sizing and scheduling problem in flat-panel display manufacturing process","authors":"Seyoung Oh ,&nbsp;Jinyeong Jeong ,&nbsp;Younsoo Lee ,&nbsp;Kyungsik Lee","doi":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103386","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103386","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In this paper, we address a lot-sizing and scheduling problem with parallel production lines originating from a flat-panel display manufacturing process. Due to the use of high-tech equipment and expensive materials, as well as high demand levels, it is crucial to establish efficient production plans for this process. We present two integer optimization models for the problem. The first one is an extension of a model proposed in previous literature. Although the model shows satisfactory performance for problems with a single production line, it does not scale well with an increasing number of production lines. To address the scalability issue, we propose an integer optimization approach that can deal with parallel production lines efficiently. Specifically, we introduce a pattern-based model utilizing the concept of a single-line production schedule pattern. To deal with the exponential number of pattern variables in the model, we develop a branch-and-price algorithm. Additionally, we devise an efficient labeling algorithm to solve pricing subproblems, based on a time-expanded network structure of the problem. The performance of the proposed models and algorithms is investigated through computational experiments using real-world data. The test results demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our approaches, particularly showing that the branch-and-price algorithm scales well with an increasing number of production lines.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19529,"journal":{"name":"Omega-international Journal of Management Science","volume":"138 ","pages":"Article 103386"},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144517495","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Randomized price-matching: How the instant retail platform competes with the community group-buying store","authors":"Chenchen Zhao ,&nbsp;Jianghua Wu ,&nbsp;Yuhong He","doi":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103393","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103393","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Community group-buying, leveraging the “pre-sale + self-pickup” mode, has surged in recent years, offering competitive prices due to operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness, appealing to liberal customers. Nonetheless, conservative customers still favor instant retail platforms, prompting them to frequently cut prices amid emerging competition. Therefore, this study proposes a randomized price-matching (PM) strategy for instant retail platforms to increase their revenue. Under this strategy, the platform randomly decides whether to match the low prices offered by community group-buying stores in each sales period. Therefore, this study constructs a game-theoretical model to explore not only the impact of instant retail platforms’ randomized PM strategies on the pricing and profits of the two retailers but also how strategic customer behavior affects retailers’ pricing strategies. We find that the randomized PM strategy is not always optimal for the instant retail platform, especially when the utility loss from delayed purchases or customer acceptance of group-buying channels is small. Furthermore, the randomized PM strategy often leads the platform and group-buying store to increase their prices. However, it can result in a decrease in the group-buying store’s price when the proportion of liberal customers is small. Interestingly, this strategy has the potential to not only boost the platform’s profits but also benefit the community group-buying store, thus achieving win-win outcome. Furthermore, customer composition and characteristics affect pricing decisions. Specifically, under the randomized PM strategy, as customers’ acceptance of group-buying channels increases, the platform will raise the PM probability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19529,"journal":{"name":"Omega-international Journal of Management Science","volume":"138 ","pages":"Article 103393"},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144549337","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Order quantity optimization model for perishable products under continuous review (Q, r) inventory policy with stochastic demand and positive lead time","authors":"Pavee Siriruk,&nbsp;Apicha Kotekangpoo","doi":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103392","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103392","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Expired perishable products impose costs on businesses, making effective inventory control essential for reducing wastage and enhancing profitability. This research proposes a mathematical model for determining the optimal order quantity of perishable products under a continuous review <span><math><mrow><mo>(</mo><mrow><mi>Q</mi><mo>,</mo><mspace></mspace><mi>r</mi></mrow><mo>)</mo></mrow></math></span> inventory policy, with a fixed lifetime, stochastic demand, and a positive lead time. Unlike conventional models, the proposed approach incorporates outdating costs into the total expected cost calculation. Due to the model’s computational complexity, the evolution strategy (<em>μ</em> + <em>λ</em>) optimization algorithm is employed to optimize the order quantity (<span><math><msup><mrow><mi>Q</mi></mrow><mo>*</mo></msup></math></span>) with minimum total expected cost. Numerical experiments are carried out using a case study of a hospital blood bank in Thailand. Sensitivity analysis is conducted to examine the effect of parameter variations on <span><math><msup><mrow><mi>Q</mi></mrow><mo>*</mo></msup></math></span>. The originality of this research lies in the application of the ES (<em>μ</em> + <em>λ</em>) algorithm to efficiently optimize order quantities of perishable products under a continuous review (<em>Q, r</em>) inventory policy.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19529,"journal":{"name":"Omega-international Journal of Management Science","volume":"138 ","pages":"Article 103392"},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144557083","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Subsidy policy design for low-carbon products considering production and pricing competition","authors":"Ting Zhang ,&nbsp;Yunzhi Cao ,&nbsp;Jing Cui","doi":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103391","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103391","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Government subsidy plays a crucial role in addressing the funding shortfall of low-carbon technology. This paper establishes a three-stage dynamic game model to investigate the interplay between the design of government subsidy policies and the low-carbon technology selection of two competing manufacturers. The government acts as a leader, strategically allocating subsidies for low-carbon product manufacturers and consumers. The two manufacturers, positioned as followers, make independent decisions regarding the technology they adopt for production and sales. We analytically deduce the equilibrium solutions and conduct numerical experiments to investigate the impact of crucial factors on the economy and environment. The results indicate that an increase in the investment cost for low-carbon technology induces the government to enhance not only the total subsidy amount but also the proportion directly allocated to consumers. Moreover, the manufacturers’ technology selection exhibits a dynamic response to government subsidies. As the subsidy amount increases, the two manufacturers change from both choosing conventional technology to low-carbon technology, which is independent of the recipients of the government subsidy. Interestingly, we find that the two manufacturers may fall into a prisoner’s dilemma regardless of the technology they choose. Adopting low-carbon technology is not always beneficial to the environment, especially when the output of low-carbon products is relatively high.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19529,"journal":{"name":"Omega-international Journal of Management Science","volume":"138 ","pages":"Article 103391"},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144519158","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Free extended warranty service strategies with unequal consumers’ preference on retailing channels","authors":"Lin Li ,&nbsp;Guo Li","doi":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103388","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103388","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The intense competition in product homogeneity has induced a growing number of firms to offer free extended warranty service without additional charge for consumers. This practice can significantly enhance consumer loyalty towards products, which in turn has important implications for firm performance and distribution strategies. We develop a stylized model to investigate whether the manufacturer or the retailer should provide free extended warranty services, considering unequal consumer channel preference where consumers prefer the traditional retail channel over the online channel. Our findings indicate that when the manufacturer offers a free extended warranty service, it may achieve higher profitability by introducing an online channel compared to not offering such a service, even if the online channel preference coefficient is relatively low. Interestingly, when the preference coefficient for the online channel is high, the retailer can strategically deter the manufacturer from opening an online channel by offering a free extended warranty service, provided that the marginal cost of providing this service is negligible. When the manufacturer introduces an online channel, the manufacturer benefits the most from providing a free extended warranty service, while the retailer benefits the most from offering its own free extended warranty service. However, for the entire supply chain, the strategy of the manufacturer providing a free extended warranty service dominates, irrespective of whether the manufacturer introduces an online channel or not.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19529,"journal":{"name":"Omega-international Journal of Management Science","volume":"138 ","pages":"Article 103388"},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144523156","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Should a retailer opt for an advance selling strategy? Perspectives from a capital-constrained supply chain","authors":"Yajing Wang ,&nbsp;Jian Li ,&nbsp;Shichao Zhu ,&nbsp;Shouyang Wang ,&nbsp;T.C.E. Cheng","doi":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103380","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.omega.2025.103380","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div><strong>Problem Definition and Methodology:</strong> The practice of some enterprises using Internet platforms/e-commerce platforms to raise funds for purchasing/producing products through the implementation of advance selling has received widespread attention. Consumer-oriented advance selling financing has emerged as a new financing tool. However, it is evident that not all capital-constrained retailers adopt advance selling financing because of possible influences from upstream producers. Accordingly, we apply a game-theoretic approach to discern how advance selling impacts all stakeholders and the overall performance. The producer first charges the purchasing price, and subsequent inventory financing decisions lie with the retailer, who may opt for trade credit alone (TC), advance selling alone (AS), or a combination of both (AT), assuming the producer offers delayed payments to its downstream.</div></div><div><h3>Results:</h3><div>We find that when adopting the advance selling financing strategy, the retailer should offer consumers an early purchase price discount. When a capital-constrained retailer adopts the advance selling financing strategy, it needs to consider the number of informed consumers. When there are relatively few informed consumers and the product cost is low to moderate, the producer tends to set a lower wholesale price to encourage the retailer to adopt AT to optimize the cash flow. On the contrary, the producer raises the price, prompting the retailer to rely on TC. However, when there are more informed consumers, the retailer is more inclined to adopt AS. At this time, the producer’s pricing strategy cannot influence the retailer’s choice, leaving the producer in a passive position. This indicates that the advance selling strategy is not always beneficial to the producer in a capital-constrained decentralized supply chain, which is inconsistent with the situation in a well-funded supply chain. The model is then extended to a stochastic demand scenario, where, in the context of a large scale of informed consumers, the randomness of market demand significantly alters the revenue structure between the retailer and the producer.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19529,"journal":{"name":"Omega-international Journal of Management Science","volume":"138 ","pages":"Article 103380"},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144471862","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}