| The production of many perishable products, such as live seafood, fresh fruit, vegetable, etc., is highly characterized by geographical location. As such, it is quite common that a product produced in a region is sold to a distant market where the product is consumed. Because of the perishable nature of the products, the delivery time plays a significant role in the supply chain management with perishable products. It may affect a perishable product in one or both of the following aspects: (i) physical decay, which affects the effective supply of the product; (ii) value deterioration, which affects the demand for the product. The primary goal of this dissertation is to conduct an in-depth study on the supply chain management strategies and policies when the effective supply and demand of perishable products are affected by delivery time.; This dissertation consists of the following four parts, each of which investigates a specific problem under our framework of perishable product supply chain management with uncertain delivery time:; Chapter 2 considers such a problem: A wholesaler purchases a fresh product from multiple suppliers located in different geographical areas, to sell it at a wholesale market that opens for a specific time period each day. The arrival time of the product ordered from each supplier is a random variable. Any fresh product arriving earlier has to wait until the wholesale market opens and faces the risk of decay. We formulate the problem as a multiple supplier selection problem and derive the optimal static and dynamic policies corresponding to different realistic situations.; Chapter 3 considers a supply chain where a distributor procures from a manufacturer a type of fresh product, which has to undergo a long distance transportation before reaching the market. In addition to the risk caused by random fluctuations of the market demand, the distributor also faces the risk that the product procured may "decay" and "deteriorate" during transportation. The market demand for the product depends on its freshness level as well as the selling price of the distributor. We develop a model to formulate the above problem, derive each party's optimal decisions in both decentralized and centralized systems, and introduce an incentive scheme to facilitate the coordination of the two parties.; Chapter 4 considers such a problem: Multiple retailers sell a family of substitute perishable products for a common market with demand correlation. Each retailer's demand distribution is a function of all retailers' prices and delivery times. We formulate three models corresponding to different realistic situations. We study, for each model, the existence and uniqueness of the equilibrium solutions.; Chapter 5 considers the following problem: A manufacturer owns a certain amount of perishable raw material which can be produced into different types of products. He must, however, finish the manufacturing process before a random deadline (which corresponds, for example, the pickup time of a transporter). Due to the deadline constraint and the raw material limit, it is imperative for the manufacturer to determine three decisions: (i) the product types to be produced; (ii) the machine time to be allocated for each product type; and (iii) the sequence to process the products selected. We develop a model to address this problem. The optimal decisions are obtained either analytically, or through a simple computational procedure.; Generally, because time is a crucial element for perishable products, it is imperative for decision makers involved in the supply chain to adopt the right decisions at the right timing, otherwise substantial loss would be incurred. The models, optimal decisions, and managerial insights derived in this dissertation advance not only the relevant studies along the research direction of perishable product supply chain management, but also the understanding of the optimal solutions to be adopted to tackle the releva... |
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