Supply Chain Coordination for Fixed Lifetime Products with Permissible Delay in Payments

This paper considers a two-level supply chain coordination problem for fixed lifetime products with permissible delay in payments. Two cases are discussed; that is, the retailer is required to settle the balance before the end of the ordering cycle (Case I) and after the ordering cycle (Case II). The coordination models are proposed and analyzed, respectively. The analytical methods as to how to determine the optimal policy are presented. In addition, it is indicated that the supplier's cost as well as that of the total system will be reduced no matter how much the parameters change, and the retailer will benefit from coordination, if the supplier is willing to share the cost saving with him/her in Case I. In Case II, the retailer's average cost will be reduced and the supplier will benefit from coordination only under certain conditions. Besides, the results show that, for fixed lifetime products, providing longer credit period than the retailer's order period is not commonly applicable.