Supply Chain Competition with Integrated Financial Policy, Capacity Strategy and Operations Planning under Demand and Credit-Market Risk

Abstract

Financial policy directly affects the availability and cost of a firm’s working capital which has significant impacts on the firm’s operations, profitability and risk. The capacity strategy also relies on the financing resources and is an integral part of the operations planning. This paper is the first research that examines the financial policy, capacity strategy, and operations planning in a holistic manner. We first develop an optimization model that integrates these three levels of decisions with the consideration of demand uncertainty and credit market risk. We also study the competition among firms who may use different financial policies and capacity strategies. In particular, we use the theory of variational inequality to model the equilibria of multiple competing firms under uncertain demand and credit conditions. We also provide numerical case studies which generate important managerial insights.