International Journal of Industrial Engineering & Production Research

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Service Oriented Enterprises (SOEs) are subject to constant change and variation. In this paper, the changes are considered from an economic perspective based on service culture notion. Once a change is implemented, the costs of some member services may increase, whereas the costs of some other services may reduce. We construct a game theoretic model trying to capture the possible conflicting interests of different parties in a SOE. Three incentive mechanisms are applied to the model. The first incentive mechanism shares the utility equally among the services involved in the change the second utility-sharing rule is based on the Nash’s bargaining solution, which accommodates the possible biased interdependencies inside the network and the third rule, based on the Harsanyi’s modified Shapley value, takes into account the possible coalition formation among the network parties. Since the three rules are analytically solvable, the principles of utility sharing can be implemented, for instance, as ex-ante contracts.

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  Response time is one of the critical web service quality dimensions. It refers to how long it takes that a web service responds to request of a user. In order to manage the response time, pricing schemes can work as an efficient access control mechanism. In this paper, we study competition between two providers offering functionally same web services where there is a monopoly service provider. The monopoly offers a service that is complementary to their services. Each provider needs to decide a service level (L or H) and a corresponding price for the selected service level to meet the service level guarantee. We construct a Stackelberg game and benefit from queuing theory concept to propose a model that can examine strategic choices of the providers .

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An equitable risk allocation between contracting parties plays a vital role in enhancing the performance of the project. This research presents a new quantitative risk allocation approach by integrating fuzzy logic and bargaining game theory. Owing to the imprecise and uncertain nature of players’ payoffs at different risk allocation strategies, fuzzy logic is implemented to determine the value of players’ payoffs based on the experience and subjective judgment of experts involved in the project. Having determined the players' payoffs, bargaining game theory is then applied to find the equitable risk allocation between the client and contractor. Four different methods including symmetric Nash, non-symmetric Nash, non-symmetric Kalai–Smorodinsky and non-symmetric area monotonic are implemented to determine the equitable risk allocation. To evaluate the performance of the proposed model, it is implemented in a pipeline project and the quantitative risk allocation is performed for the inflation risk as one of the most significant identified risks.

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In this paper, a new approach based on game theory has been proposed to multi responses problem optimization. Game theory is a useful tool for decision making in the conflict of interests between intelligent players in order to select the best joint strategy for them through selecting the best joint desirability. Present research uses the game theory approach via definition of each response as each player and factors as strategies of each player. This approach cans determine the best predictor factor sets in order to obtain the best joint desirability of responses. For this aim, the signal to noise ratio(SN) index for each response have been calculated with considering the joint values of strategies then obtained SN ratios for each strategy is modeled in the game theory table. Finally, using Nash Equilibrium method, the best strategy which is the best values of predictor factors is determined. A real case and a numerical example are given to show the efficiency of the proposed method. In addition, the performance of the proposed method is compared with the VIKOR method.

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Data envelopment analysis (DEA) and balanced scorecard (BSC) are two well-known approaches for measuring performance of decision making units (DMUs). BSC is especially applied with quality measures, whereas, when the quantity measures are used to evaluate, DEA is more appropriate. In the real-world, DMUs usually have complex structures such as network structures. One of the well-known network structures is two-stage processes with intermediate measures. In this structure, there are two stages and each stage uses inputs to produce outputs separately where the first stage outputs are inputs for the second stage. This paper deals with integrated DEA and game theory approaches for evaluating two-stage processes. In addition, it is an extension of DEA model based on BSC perspectives. BSC is used to categorize the efficiency measures under two-stage process. Furthermore, we propose a two-stage DEA model with considering leader-follower structure and including multiple sub stages in the follower stage. To determine importance of each category of measures in a competitive environment, cooperative and non-cooperative game approaches are used. A case study for measuring performance of power plants in Iran is presented to show the abilities of the proposed approach.

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Pricing and advertising are two important marketing strategies in the supply chain management which lead to customer demand’s increase and therefore higher profit for members of supply chains. This paper considers advertising, and pricing decisions simultaneously for a three-level supply chain with one supplier, one manufacturer and one retailer. The amount of market demand is influenced by pricing and advertising. In this paper, three well-known approaches in the game theory including the Nash, Stackelberg and Cooperative games are exploited to study the effects of pricing and advertising decisions on the supply chain. Using these approaches, we identify optimal decisions in each case for the supplier, the manufacturer and the retailer. Also, we compare the outcomes decisions among the mentioned games. The results show that, the Cooperative and the Nash games have the highest and lowest advertising expenditure, respectively. The price level in the Nash game is more than the Stackelberg game for all three levels, and the retailer price in the Stackelberg and Cooperative games are equal. The system has the highest profit in the Cooperative game. Finally, the Nash bargaining model will be presented and explored to investigate the possibilities for profit sharing.

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In the current study, a dual-channel supply chain is considered containing one manufacturer and two retailers. It is assumed that the manufacturer and retailers have the same decision powers. A game-theoretic approach is developed to analyze pricing decisions under the centralized and decentralized scenarios. First, the Nash model is established to obtain the equilibrium decisions in the decentralized case. Then, the centralized model is developed to maximize the total profit of the whole system. Finally, the equilibrium decisions are discussed and some managerial insights are revealed. 

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This paper considers the advertising, pricing, and service decisions simultaneously to coordinate the supply chain with a manufacturer and a retailer. The amount of market demand is influenced by advertising, pricing and service decisions. In this paper, three well-known approaches to the game theory, including the Nash, the Stackelberg-retailer, and the cooperative game are exploited to study the effects of these policies on the supply chain. Using these approaches, we identify optimal strategies in each case for the manufacturer and the retailer. Then, we will compare the outcomes of each strategy thus developed. The results show that, compared with the Nash game, the Stackelberg-retailer game yields higher profits for the retailer, the manufacturer, and the whole system. The cooperative game yields the highest profits. Finally, the Nash bargaining model will be presented and explored to investigate the possibilities for profit sharing.

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In recent years, comprehensive researches have provided ample support for the supply chains in the coordinated decision-making framework. However, the issue of closed-loop supply chain coordination considering various transportation modes has not yet been addressed in the literature. In this paper, a two-echelon closed-loop supply chain consisting of a manufacturer and a retailer is investigated in which the manufacturer acts as a Stackelberg leader and the retailer plays follower role. All transportation activities between the channel members are carried out via two transportation types including the economic and green modes. First, the proposed problem is examined under the decentralized and centralized settings. Then, a mathematical modeling is developed to coordinate the decisions related to retail price, collection effort, and ratio of transportation mode selection. Finally, some numerical examples are applied with the aim of analyzing the performance of decentralized, centralized, and coordinated decision-making structures. The results reveal that not only the Pareto optimal solution is achievable for both channel members but also the coordination scheme has sufficient efficiency to reach the best solution up to the centralized setting.

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Todays, the variety of new products will raise the competition between manufacturers. Product portfolio management (PPM) as a suitable tool can influence the customer’s taste and increase the profit of firms. In this paper, the factors of PPM, production planning and a two-player continuous game theory are considered simultaneously. Some constraints are also assumed such as the availability of raw materials and the demand of each product based on some criteria. Two firms have same offered products and compete with each other. The relationships between two producers will be modeled by a non-zero two- player game. A numerical example is presented too. The proposed model is single period that the inventory is equal to zero in the start and finish of period. The objective functions show the profit of products and the constraints are included the utility of products for each customer, the market's share as a function of the probability of customer selection for each section, the type of distribution function for sale quantity, the accessible quantity of the sum of used materials by two producers and etc.
The results shows that demand changing effects on the profit of two players, but effects more on the second player. Also the sale price changing effects on the profit of two players, but effects more on the first player. The obtained data shows that if extra sale price increase the profit of first player will increase while the profit of second player is constant approximately.

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