رقابت قیمت و خدمات بین محصولات جدید و دوباره تولید شده در یک زنجیره تامین دو پله

In this paper, we consider a supply chain consisting of two manufacturers and a retailer. The first manufacturer is a traditional manufacturer that produces the new product, while the second manufacturer operates a reverse channel producing remanufactured products from used cores. Both manufacturers bundle their products with services, including warranty and advertisement, and they sell through the same retailer, which independently determines the sales prices. We assume that the second manufacturer invests extra effort in facilitating the remanufacturing process. In this study, we identify the equilibrium characteristics with respect to the remanufacturer's effort and price and service decisions for all members of the supply chain. We also investigate the profits of chain members by considering different interactions between prices and service. Based on the theoretical and numerical analyses, we derive economic and managerial insights for chain members.

Remanufacturing is the process whereby some components of used products are disassembled, cleaned, reprocessed, inspected, and then reassembled to be used again. Consumer awareness, oversight from non-governmental organizations, and legislative pressures have encouraged manufacturers to produce green and eco-friendly products, and thus, more and more manufacturers now build reverse channels to recycle used products for remanufacturing. However, rather than environmental concerns, the economic benefits that accompany remanufacturing is the main consideration for manufacturers. Because of decrements in the costs associated with raw material production, a remanufacturing system provides an opportunity to reduce not only the environmental burden but also production costs. According to a recent report by Global Industry Analysts (2010), global automotive manufacturing is growing, and by 2015, it is forecasted to reach US$104.8 billion. Such a strong growth in remanufacturing is also present in other industries, such as toner and inkjet cartridges, electrical equipments, consumer electronics, and furniture (Hauser and Lund, 2008). In practice, it is important for manufacturers to adjust their sales strategies in response to the introduction of remanufacturing. For instance, the large personal computer manufacturer, HP Inc., has adopted a remanufacturing program called “HP Renew Program” for recycling and selling the remanufactured or refurbished products. Its remanufacturing program certifies that the remanufactured products performing well and can substitute new products at lower prices, and it also provides warranty and service for the remanufactured products. Thus far, not all HP's competitors have followed suit, and therefore, the consumers must choose between remanufactured and new products based on product information of prices and service offerings. In the context of this business model, a comparative investigation of price and service for new versus remanufactured products is useful for manufacturers as well as retailers, as it should provide valuable insights into the interactions between price and service, sales decisions, and performance. To the best of our knowledge, all the previous studies examining remanufacturing are models that only consider the remanufactured product while ignoring the competition, or they are competitive models with a single price attribute. In this study, we incorporate the competitive nature of products and service into our supply chain model of a common retailer and two manufacturers. One manufacturer produces the new product, and the other produces the remanufactured product under the framework of product competition. In our model, we analyze the effects of competition, and thus, we consider four competitive interactions: the presence of price and service competition, price competition only, and service competition only as well as the absence of both price and service competition. Note that the interaction with both price and service competition can be viewed as a general model such that the demand functions, chain members' profit functions, and equilibrium decisions for other interactions can be obtained from this competitive model. Our analyses reveal that when remanufacturing leads to more cost-savings, the remanufacturer will provide a higher service level to the customers than the traditional manufacturer. Moreover, production cost always has negative effects on the chain members' decisions; however, the effects of the costs of recycling and service investment on equilibrium decisions depend on the intensities of price and service competition, especially in determining the new-product manufacturer's equilibrium decisions. Comparing the different interactions, we find that in the presence of competition, the manufacturer has an incentive to remanufacture, yet the opposite is the case in the absence of competition. Moreover, for the retailer, price competition generally enhances profits from the remanufactured product, and thus benefits the remanufacturer. Meanwhile, service competition is profitable for the retailer yet detrimental to both manufacturers. However, the remanufacturer is likely to engage in service competition when cost-savings from remanufacturing are significant or recycling costs are low. Moreover, remanufacturing is an effective strategy in a highly price-sensitive market, even in the absence of price competition. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 surveys the related literature while emphasizing the contribution of our work. In Section 3, we formalize price- and service-sensitive market demands and chain members' profit functions, and we derive their best response functions. Then, we solve for the member equilibrium decisions under the four competitive interactions. Section 4 presents analytical analyses of chain members' equilibrium decisions with respect to the cost parameters, and then it describes numerical studies that examine the effects of cost- and demand-related parameters on chain members' equilibrium profits. The final section concludes with a brief summary, including suggestions for future research.

In this study, we proposed a supply chain model with a common retailer and two manufacturers—one manufacturer produces a new product and the other produces a remanufactured product. Both manufacturers provide service for their products, and the retailer determines the prices of the products for the market, which is incentive in terms of price and service. Four competitive interactions are considered: no price and service competition, price competition only, service competition only, and both price and service competition. Furthermore, our model enables us to examine the influences of price and service competition on chain members' interactions with respect to decisions and profitabilities. Our contribution is substantive as no prior research has considered service competition in a closed-loop supply chain with remanufacturing. More importantly, our results also provide guidelines for choosing marketing strategies for price and service decisions under different interactions. Our analysis yields the following insights. The intensities of price and service competition affect the trends in equilibrium decisions with respect to recycling cost and service investment, especially for the new-product manufacturer's equilibrium decisions. The remanufacturer delegates more effort to remanufacturing under competition, while the reverse is hold without competition. Price and service have different impacts on chain members' profits. Price competition generally increases the remanufacturer's and the retailer's profit from the remanufactured product because of lower cost of that product. Service competition is profitable for the retailer yet detrimental to both manufacturers; this is because service costs are born by the manufacturers. However, if cost-savings are significant and recycling cost is low, remanufacturing is an effective strategy for the remanufacturer under service competition with the traditional manufacturer. Moreover, remanufacturing is also beneficial to the remanufacturer under a highly price-sensitive market, even in the absence of price competition.