Decision-making Research On The Launch Frequency Of Electronic Products

Moore put forward the famous Moore's law in 1965,which means that the density of transistors doubles every 18 months.This law reveals the speed of technological advancement in the information technology industry.Fine extended this Law in 1996 and put forward the concept of industrial clockspeed.He considers that in many industries,the speeds of technological improvements are fixed.Correspondingly,many firms introduce new products at regular intervals,which is called a time-pacing product development strategy.The launch time of successive multi-generation products is a strategic decision for many companies,especially high-tech companies,and it has high research significance and value.However,due to the difficulty of research and other reasons,the current research in this field is still insufficient.This thesis mainly focuses on the industry of electronic information.At present,the electronic information industry has infiltrated into all aspects of the national economy and people's lives.It belongs to a technology and capital intensive industry with high investment in R&D and relatively low production costs.Moreover,the electronic information industry has made rapid progress in technology,and the upgrading of product is fast.In particular,in recent decades,the electronic information industry has developed rapidly,and new management practices and research issues have been constantly emerging.This thesis focuses on the decision-making research on the launch frequency of electronic products.Our research mainly includes the following three aspects:(1)The optimal product launch frequency considering maintenanceSome products,such as software systems and high-end equipment,need the maintenance and support from their manufacturers to ensure the reliability and stability of products when in use.For example,Microsoft patches every Windows operating system after its release.Meanwhile,these firms need constantly develop and introduce new products with new technologies to make profits.Since both the product launch frequency and maintenance time have a great impact on customer purchase and replacement decisions,it is important for the firms to jointly optimize their product launch frequency and maintenance time.In this study,we analyze the interaction between product launch frequency and maintenance time to discuss the lifecycle management of products with an after-sale maintenance service.(2)The optimal product launch frequency with the manufacturer as a leaderIn this study,we consider a supply chain consisting of a manufacturer and a supplier with their respective inherent technology upgrade frequencies.Their inherent upgrade frequencies may not match perfectly,but the launch of new products requires efforts from both parties.We propose a mechanism to coordinate them.We find that by reducing the upgrade frequency,the supplier can reduce R&D cost per unit time,but this hurts the manufacturer.When the supplier's R&D cost is low,it will spontaneously adopt a high upgrade frequency.When the supplier's R&D cost is high,it will adopt a high upgrade frequency only if the manufacturer offers compensation.As the supplier's R&D cost increases,the manufacturer compensates the supplier first by extending the product launch cycle until the supply chain is coordinated,after which it continues to compensate the supplier by cost sharing or revenue sharing.However,when the supplier's R&D cost is exceedingly large,the gap between inherent upgrade frequencies of both sides is so large that it is ineffective to compensate the supplier.Therefore,both parties agree that the supplier adopts a low upgrade frequency.(3)The optimal product launch frequency with the supplier as a leaderIn this study,we discuss how the downstream manufacturers plan their new product launch times according to the technology upgrading routes of upstream suppliers.We find that,in some industries with fast technological advancement,such as the electronics industry,some manufacturers introduce two series of products at the staggered time in one product cycle of their key suppliers,which we call the staggered double flagship strategy.We analyze the staggered double flagship strategy in detail and compare it with the single flagship strategy.We find that the supplier always benefits from the manufacturer adopting the staggered double flagship strategy.However,when the manufacturer's R&D cost is high,the profit of the manufacturer adopting the single flagship strategy is higher.At this time,the supplier can induce the manufacturer to adopt the staggered double flagship strategy by compensating the manufacturer.When compensating the manufacturer,the supplier should prioritize extending the product launch cycle until the supply chain is coordinated,after which it continues to compensate the manufacturer by revenue sharing.However,when the manufacturer's R&D cost is exceedingly high,it is ineffective for the supplier to induce the manufacturer to adopt the staggered double flagship strategy by providing compensation.Thus,the manufacturer adopts the single flagship strategy.