Coordinating manufacturer's innovation and retailer's promotion and replenishment using a compensation-based wholesale price contract

In this paper, coordination of a manufacturer-retailer chain is investigated where the manufacturer innovates in manufacturing process and the retailer applies promotional efforts. The market demand is assumed to be stochastic dependent on the retailer's promotional and the manufacturer's innovation efforts. The retailer uses a periodic review inventory system for replenishing items and decides on order-up-to level, review period and promotional efforts level. On the other hand, it is possible for the manufacturer to boost the market demand by innovation in manufacturing process. The retailer's promotional and manufacturer's innovation efforts not only affect their profits, but also impress their mutual profits and the supply chain performance in an indirect manner. Firstly, we develop the decentralized and centralized decision-making models along with solution procedures and concavity analysis to solve the models. Although the centralized model improves the profitability of the whole supply chain, it may reduce the profitability of either the retailer or the manufacturer. Therefore, we propose a new compensation-based wholesale price contract for encouraging actors to take part in the joint decision-making scheme. Moreover, a profit sharing strategy based on the bargaining power of members is proposed for distributing the surplus profit between members. Finally, the results of the decentralized, centralized and coordination models are compared using test problems and some sensitivity analyses are presented.