Manufacturer's printing forecast, reprinting decision, and contract design in the educational publishing industry
Journal
Computers and Industrial Engineering
Journal Volume
125
Pages
678-687
Date Issued
2018
Author(s)
Liang, C.-L.
Abstract
An educational publishing industry generally builds lots of inventory for make-to-stock production; however, the frequent revision causes the obsolescence problem. This study proposes two models to address different but related problems, inventory scrap and contract design. The industry uses prediction modeling to forecast demand and manage inventory of diverse print products. The printing decision module is developed to improve the accuracy of the demand forecast and reduce the inventory scrap problem. In addition, there exists asymmetric information in a two-echelon supply chain and contract design favors educational publishing retailers; thus the profitability of the overall supply chain is not maximized and manufacturers’ profits are limited. This study suggests a contract design module to encourage retailers to provide true information for improving profitability in the overall supply chain. An empirical study of Taiwan's leading educational publisher validates the proposed models. The results show that the proposed printing decision model improved forecast accuracy by 3.7%, reduced cost by 8.3%, and the contract design enhanced overall supply chain and manufacturer profitability by 0.5% and 2.7%, respectively.
SDGs
Type
journal article