This thesis consists of three production scheduling and planning problems with pricing issues. The first problem studies the joint pricing and scheduling decisions of an MTO firm. The firm is challenged to coordinate the pricing and scheduling decisions, in order to maximize the profit. Two types of quotation modes, simultaneous quotation and sequential quotation are studied. For simultaneous quotation, we formulate the problem as a quadratic programming. For sequential quotation, we devise several dynamic programming algorithms. Extensive computational study is performed to compare these two types of quotation and a handful of insights are derived....[ Read more ]

This thesis consists of three production scheduling and planning problems with pricing issues. The first problem studies the joint pricing and scheduling decisions of an MTO firm. The firm is challenged to coordinate the pricing and scheduling decisions, in order to maximize the profit. Two types of quotation modes, simultaneous quotation and sequential quotation are studied. For simultaneous quotation, we formulate the problem as a quadratic programming. For sequential quotation, we devise several dynamic programming algorithms. Extensive computational study is performed to compare these two types of quotation and a handful of insights are derived.

The second problem deals with a dynamic lot sizing problem for multiple products, each having dynamic demand over a finite planning horizon. All products' inventories are replenished jointly by disassembling a primary raw product. The issue is how to wisely reject some demand for some products to coordinate the tradeoff between production cost, inventory holding cost and lost sales cost. We formulate the problem as an integer programming and prove its NP-hardness. A special case that does not allow lost sales is studied, followed by two heuristics algorithms for the general problem. Computational study reveals the efficiency of the heuristic algorithms and the value of the option of lost sales.

The third problem studies the cooperation between firms engaged in a recycling business that transforms a common waste product into multiple types of recycled products. We model the situation as a cooperative game using cooperative game theory in the coalitional form. By pooling recycling operations together and making joint pricing decisions, the profitability of firms can be boosted. We provide a core allocation of profits among all firms through duality approach. We further consider two extensions and discuss their core existence.