IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormnsc/v54y2008i3p522-537.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Pricing and Operational Recourse in Coproduction Systems

Author

Listed:
  • Brian Tomlin

    (Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599)

  • Yimin Wang

    (W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287)

Abstract

Coproduction systems, in which multiple products are produced simultaneously in a single production run, are prevalent in many industries. Such systems typically produce a random quantity of vertically differentiated products. This product hierarchy enables the firm to fill demand for a lower-quality product by converting a higher-quality product. In addition to the challenges presented by random yields and multiple products, coproduction systems often serve multiple customer classes that differ in their product valuations. Furthermore, the sizes of these classes are uncertain. Employing a utility-maximizing customer model, we investigate the production, pricing, downconversion, and allocation decisions in a two-class, stochastic-demand, stochastic-yield coproduction system. For the single-class case, we establish that downconversion will not occur if prices are set optimally. In contrast, we show that downconversion can be optimal in the two-class case, even if prices are set optimally. We consider the benefit of postponing certain operational decisions, e.g., the pricing or allocation-rule decisions, until after uncertainties are resolved. We use the term recourse to denote actions taken after uncertainties have been resolved. We find that recourse pricing benefits the firm much more than either downconversion or recourse allocation do, implying that recourse demand management is more valuable than recourse supply management. Special cases of our model include the single-class and two-class random-yield newsvendor models.

Suggested Citation

  • Brian Tomlin & Yimin Wang, 2008. "Pricing and Operational Recourse in Coproduction Systems," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(3), pages 522-537, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:54:y:2008:i:3:p:522-537
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.1070.0807
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1070.0807
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mnsc.1070.0807?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jan A. Van Mieghem, 2004. "Note--Commonality Strategies: Value Drivers and Equivalence with Flexible Capacity and Inventory Substitution," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(3), pages 419-424, March.
    2. Kalyan Talluri & Garrett van Ryzin, 2004. "Revenue Management Under a General Discrete Choice Model of Consumer Behavior," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(1), pages 15-33, January.
    3. Qing Li & Shaohui Zheng, 2006. "Joint Inventory Replenishment and Pricing Control for Systems with Uncertain Yield and Demand," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 54(4), pages 696-705, August.
    4. Jiri Chod & Nils Rudi, 2005. "Resource Flexibility with Responsive Pricing," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 53(3), pages 532-548, June.
    5. William C. Jordan & Stephen C. Graves, 1995. "Principles on the Benefits of Manufacturing Process Flexibility," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(4), pages 577-594, April.
    6. Nicholas C. Petruzzi & Maqbool Dada, 1999. "Pricing and the Newsvendor Problem: A Review with Extensions," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 47(2), pages 183-194, April.
    7. Garrett van Ryzin & Siddharth Mahajan, 1999. "On the Relationship Between Inventory Costs and Variety Benefits in Retail Assortments," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(11), pages 1496-1509, November.
    8. Xin Chen & David Simchi-Levi, 2004. "Coordinating Inventory Control and Pricing Strategies with Random Demand and Fixed Ordering Cost: The Infinite Horizon Case," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 29(3), pages 698-723, August.
    9. S. David Wu & Berrin Aytac & Rosemary T. Berger & Chris A. Armbruster, 2006. "Managing Short Life-Cycle Technology Products for Agere Systems," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 36(3), pages 234-247, June.
    10. Stephen C. Graves & Brian T. Tomlin, 2003. "Process Flexibility in Supply Chains," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(7), pages 907-919, July.
    11. Qing Ding & Lingxiu Dong & Panos Kouvelis, 2007. "On the Integration of Production and Financial Hedging Decisions in Global Markets," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 55(3), pages 470-489, June.
    12. Brian Tomlin & Yimin Wang, 2005. "On the Value of Mix Flexibility and Dual Sourcing in Unreliable Newsvendor Networks," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 7(1), pages 37-57, June.
    13. Awi Federgruen & Aliza Heching, 1999. "Combined Pricing and Inventory Control Under Uncertainty," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 47(3), pages 454-475, June.
    14. Mark Bagnoli & Ted Bergstrom, 2006. "Log-concave probability and its applications," Studies in Economic Theory, in: Charalambos D. Aliprantis & Rosa L. Matzkin & Daniel L. McFadden & James C. Moore & Nicholas C. Yann (ed.), Rationality and Equilibrium, pages 217-241, Springer.
    15. Arthur Hsu & Yehuda Bassok, 1999. "Random Yield and Random Demand in a Production System with Downward Substitution," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 47(2), pages 277-290, April.
    16. Ebru K. Bish & Qiong Wang, 2004. "Optimal Investment Strategies for Flexible Resources, Considering Pricing and Correlated Demands," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 52(6), pages 954-964, December.
    17. Gabriel R. Bitran & Thin-Yin Leong, 1992. "Deterministic Approximations to Co-Production Problems with Service Constraints and Random Yields," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 38(5), pages 724-742, May.
    18. Gupta, Diwakar & Gerchak, Yigal & Buzacott, John A., 1992. "The optimal mix of flexible and dedicated manufacturing capacities: Hedging against demand uncertainty," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 309-319, December.
    19. Preyas S. Desai & Oded Koenigsberg & Devavrat Purohit, 2007. "Research Note--The Role of Production Lead Time and Demand Uncertainty in Marketing Durable Goods," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(1), pages 150-158, January.
    20. Jan A. Van Mieghem & Maqbool Dada, 1999. "Price Versus Production Postponement: Capacity and Competition," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(12), pages 1639-1649, December.
    21. Gabriel R. Bitran & Stephen M. Gilbert, 1994. "Co-Production Processes with Random Yields in the Semiconductor Industry," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 42(3), pages 476-491, June.
    22. Polatoglu, Hakan & Sahin, Izzet, 2000. "Optimal procurement policies under price-dependent demand," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 141-171, April.
    23. Serguei Netessine & Gregory Dobson & Robert A. Shumsky, 2002. "Flexible Service Capacity: Optimal Investment and the Impact of Demand Correlation," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 50(2), pages 375-388, April.
    24. Jan A. Van Mieghem, 1998. "Investment Strategies for Flexible Resources," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 44(8), pages 1071-1078, August.
    25. James D. Dana, Jr. & Nicholas C. Petruzzi, 2001. "Note: The Newsvendor Model with Endogenous Demand," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(11), pages 1488-1497, November.
    26. Charles H. Fine & Robert M. Freund, 1990. "Optimal Investment in Product-Flexible Manufacturing Capacity," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(4), pages 449-466, April.
    27. Shanling Li & Devanath Tirupati, 1994. "Dynamic Capacity Expansion Problem with Multiple Products: Technology Selection and Timing of Capacity Additions," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 42(5), pages 958-976, October.
    28. Jan A. Van Mieghem, 2003. "Commissioned Paper: Capacity Management, Investment, and Hedging: Review and Recent Developments," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 5(4), pages 269-302, July.
    29. G. R. Bitran & S. Dasu, 1992. "Ordering Policies in an environment of Stochastic Yields and Substitutable Demands," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 40(5), pages 999-1017, October.
    30. Burak Kazaz, 2004. "Production Planning Under Yield and Demand Uncertainty with Yield-Dependent Cost and Price," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 6(3), pages 209-224, October.
    31. Xin Chen & David Simchi-Levi, 2004. "Coordinating Inventory Control and Pricing Strategies with Random Demand and Fixed Ordering Cost: The Finite Horizon Case," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 52(6), pages 887-896, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Achal Bassamboo & Ramandeep S. Randhawa & Jan A. Van Mieghem, 2010. "Optimal Flexibility Configurations in Newsvendor Networks: Going Beyond Chaining and Pairing," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(8), pages 1285-1303, August.
    2. Dipankar Bose & A. K. Chatterjee & Samir Barman, 2016. "Towards dominant flexibility configurations in strategic capacity planning under demand uncertainty," OPSEARCH, Springer;Operational Research Society of India, vol. 53(3), pages 604-619, September.
    3. Jan A. Van Mieghem, 2007. "Risk Mitigation in Newsvendor Networks: Resource Diversification, Flexibility, Sharing, and Hedging," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(8), pages 1269-1288, August.
    4. Yangyang Peng & Xiaolin Xu & Xue Liang & Weili Xue, 2020. "Mismatch risk allocation in a coproduct supply chain," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 291(1), pages 707-730, August.
    5. Manu Goyal & Serguei Netessine, 2007. "Strategic Technology Choice and Capacity Investment Under Demand Uncertainty," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(2), pages 192-207, February.
    6. Onur Boyabatlı & Tiecheng Leng & L. Beril Toktay, 2016. "The Impact of Budget Constraints on Flexible vs. Dedicated Technology Choice," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(1), pages 225-244, January.
    7. Manu Goyal & Serguei Netessine, 2011. "Volume Flexibility, Product Flexibility, or Both: The Role of Demand Correlation and Product Substitution," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 13(2), pages 180-193, March.
    8. Tim Noparumpa & Burak Kazaz & Scott Webster, 2015. "Wine Futures and Advance Selling Under Quality Uncertainty," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 17(3), pages 411-426, July.
    9. Yueshan Yu & Xin Chen & Fuqiang Zhang, 2015. "Dynamic Capacity Management with General Upgrading," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 63(6), pages 1372-1389, December.
    10. Brian Tomlin & Yimin Wang, 2005. "On the Value of Mix Flexibility and Dual Sourcing in Unreliable Newsvendor Networks," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 7(1), pages 37-57, June.
    11. Jiri Chod & Nils Rudi, 2005. "Resource Flexibility with Responsive Pricing," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 53(3), pages 532-548, June.
    12. Yanmin Jiang & Rui-Na Fan, 2022. "Capacity Investment and Process Efficiency at Flexible Firms," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-17, May.
    13. Hariharan, Sharethram & Liu, Tieming & Shen, Zuo-Jun Max, 2020. "Role of resource flexibility and responsive pricing in mitigating the uncertainties in production systems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 284(2), pages 498-513.
    14. Ebru K. Bish & Qiong Wang, 2004. "Optimal Investment Strategies for Flexible Resources, Considering Pricing and Correlated Demands," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 52(6), pages 954-964, December.
    15. Bish, Ebru K. & Hong, Seong J., 2006. "Coordinating the resource investment decision for a two-market, price-setting firm," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 63-88, May.
    16. Jiri Chod & David Pyke & Nils Rudi, 2010. "The Value of Flexibility in Make-to-Order Systems: The Effect of Demand Correlation," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 58(4-part-1), pages 834-848, August.
    17. Boonman, H.J. & Hagspiel, V. & Kort, P.M., 2015. "Dedicated vs product flexible production technology: Strategic capacity investment choice," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 244(1), pages 141-152.
    18. Yu, Yimin & Shou, Biying & Ni, Yaodong & Chen, Li, 2017. "Optimal production, pricing, and substitution policies in continuous review production-inventory systems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 260(2), pages 631-649.
    19. Hongmin Li & Stephen C. Graves & Woonghee Tim Huh, 2014. "Optimal Capacity Conversion for Product Transitions Under High Service Requirements," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 16(1), pages 46-60, February.
    20. Bish, Ebru K. & Lin, Kyle Y. & Hong, Seong-Jong, 2008. "Allocation of flexible and indivisible resources with decision postponement and demand learning," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 187(2), pages 429-441, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:54:y:2008:i:3:p:522-537. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.