Flexible Capacity Investments and Product Mix: Optimal Decisions and Value of Postponement Options

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Kouvelis, Panos; Tian, Zhongjun
• 署名单位: Washington University (WUSTL); Shanghai University of Finance & Economics
• 刊物名称: PRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1059-1478
• DOI: 10.1111/poms.12082
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 861-876
• 关键词: flexible capacity; CAPACITY INVESTMENT; Product mix; Real options; Postponement

摘要

In this article, we study a firm's interdependent decisions in investing in flexible capacity, capacity allocation to individual products, and eventual production quantities and pricing in meeting uncertain demand. We propose a three-stage sequential decision model to analyze the firm's decisions, with the firm being a value maximizer owned by risk-averse investors. At the beginning of the time horizon, the firm sets the flexible capacity level using an aggregate demand forecast on the envelope of products its flexible resources can accommodate. The aggregate demand forecast evolves as a Geometric Brownian Motion process. The potential market share of each product is determined by the Multinomial Logit model. At a later time and before the end of the time horizon, the firm makes a capacity commitment decision on the allocation of the flexible capacity to each product. Finally, at the end of the time horizon, the firm observes the demand and makes the production quantity and pricing decisions for end products. We obtain the optimal solutions at each decision stage and investigate their optimal properties. Our numerical study investigates the value of the postponed capacity commitment option in supplying uncertain operation environments.