X. Cai and J. Chen
Many industries face the problem of manufacturing and selling products of time-varying values. Due to the time-varying nature of product values, determining the proper decisions and strategies regarding the best timing to offer new sales price, to place order, and to produce and deliver, is a great challenge for the manufacturer as well as the retailers involved in the supply chain. In this project we examine a supply chain with one manufacturer and multiple retailers, where the manufacturer wishes to determine a proper pricing mechanism and the corresponding production/delivery decisions, while the retailers wishes to make use of the pricing mechanism offered by the manufacturer, through possible grouping with each other to reach the needed purchase quantities for price drops. Cooperation and competition among the retailers, and between the manufacturer and the retailers, will be considered.