2016 INFORMS Annual Meeting Program

MD29

INFORMS Nashville – 2016

MD27 201A-MCC

2 - Managing Online Content To Build A Follower Base Felipe Caro, UCLA Anderson School of Management, felipe.caro@anderson.ucla.edu, Victor Martínez-de-Albéniz Content providers typically manage a dual objective of generating interest for current followers and at the same time reaching out to new audiences that may become repeat visitors. The pace at which content is created must thus take into account how much it contributes to maintain the follower base. We formulate a simple model to study follower base build-up dynamics under the assumption that the attractiveness of past content decays over time. Using stochastic dynamic programming we develop heuristics for content release and an upper bound to assess performance. We then apply our model to the case of blogs. 3 - Inventory And Channel Integration In The Presence Of Strategic Consumers Arian Aflaki, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States, aa251@duke.edu, Robert Swinney We study the impact of inventory and channel integration on a firm that sells a product to consumers that are strategic in two dimensions: they decide “whether” and “when” to visit the firm based on the availability risk, cost to visit, and price of the product. The firm decides whether to operate in a multichannel setting and dedicate separate inventory to multiple markets, or to integrate the system and combine the inventory between the markets. We show that integration can be much less valuable in the presence of strategic consumers and may even possess a negative value. 4 - Fast And Furious? The Impact Of Delivery Lead-times In Online Buyer Behavior Many e-commerce firms implement efforts to reduce their lead-times believing that faster deliveries make online buyers “happier” and thus more likely to buy more. However, the specific mechanisms through which lead-time reductions connect with sales growth are still not well understood. In this work, we leverage user and click-level activity data from an e-commerce player to find evidence of this connection. The data spans a period of time during which the firm undertook several lead-time cutting initiatives, and we build a structural model that allows us to study the impact of those on online buyer behaviour as described by traffic, conversion rates, and average ticket values. Eduard Calvo, Assistant Professor, IESE, Barcelona, Spain, ecalvo@iese.edu, Víctor Martínez-de-Albéniz, Alex Thiele Remanufacturing, Recycling, and Servicization Sponsored: Manufacturing & Service Oper Mgmt, Sustainable Operations Sponsored Session Chair: Gal Raz, Ivey Business School, 1255 Western Rd., London, ON, N6G 0N1, Canada, graz@ivey.ca 1 - Recycling As A Strategic Supply Source Gal Raz, Ivey Business School, Western Unversity, graz@ivey.ca We investigate how recycling can be used as a strategic source of supply in the presence of competition and a powerful material supplier. We examine the economic and environmental impact of a manufacturer’s decision to recycle its products and the implications for its customers, supplier, and society. We show that the result depends on the type of recycling the manufacturer does as well as on the market dynamics and price of recycling. 2 - Servicizing Business Models: A Supply Chain Perspective In recent years we have observed several auto manufacturers introducing car sharing programs. In this paper we study the different types of supply chain structures that manufacturers can use to sell cars and provide car sharing services. 3 - The Effect Of Regulation on DfE Innovation Cheryl Druehl, George Mason University, cdruehl@gmu.edu, Gal Raz, Vered Blass We examine the DfE innovations, use stage and refurbishing, of a firm selling new primary market products and refurbished products in a secondary market. The firm determines innovations, prices, and fraction collected. Using LCA data from cell phones, we compare EPR and Use stage regulations on profits and environmental impact. MD29 202A-MCC Innovative Models in CLSC: Returns, Jeremy John Kovach, Assistant Professor, Texas Christian University, TCU Box 298530, Fort Worth, TX, 76129, United States, j.j.kovach@tcu.edu, Ioannis Bellos

New Frontiers in Operations Management Sponsored: Manufacturing & Service Oper Mgmt Sponsored Session Chair: Retsef Levi, Sloan School of Management, 100 Main Street, Building E62-562, Cambridge, MA, 02142, United States, retsef@mit.edu 1 - Exploration Vs. Exploitation: Reducing Uncertainty In Operational Problems Yaron Shaposhnik, MIT, Cambridge, MA, 02139, United States, shap@mit.edu, Chen Attias, Robert Krauthgamer, Retsef Levi We study a broad class of multistage stochastic combinatorial optimization models that capture a fundamental tradeoff between performing work and making decisions under uncertainty (exploitation) and investing capacity to reduce the uncertainty in the decision making (exploration). Unlike existing models that take a Bayesian approach to learning (through sampling), we study a learning mechanism called testing (also known as probing or querying), in which exact realizations from known distributions are observed. We derive insightful structural results on the optimal policies that include the optimality of local decision rules. 2 - Competitive Analysis Of Online Scheduling Algorithms For Infusion Center Appointments Michael Hu, MIT, Cambridge, MA, United States, hum@mit.edu, Kimia Ghobadi, Retsef Levi We study the problem of minimizing resource requirements of infusion centers through the use of optimized appointment scheduling. We do this by developing a modeling framework that generalizes online bin packing. We then describe 3 different online scheduling algorithms for the problem and analyze their performance via competitive analysis. Our main result in this work is an online algorithm that is 2-competitive under certain assumptions on the appointment requests. We also establish lower bounds on the competitive ratios for all 3 online algorithms in both the most general setting and when assumptions are made on the appointment data. 3 - Incentivized Actions In Freemium Games Lifei Sheng, PhD Candidate, UBC, 2053 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada, fay.sheng@sauder.ubc.ca, Christopher Ryan, Mahesh Nagarajan We study the common phenomena of mobile game companies offering users “virtual” benefits to take actions in-game that earn the game company revenue from third parties. Examples of “incentivized actions” include paying users in “gold coins” to watch video advertising or to fill out a survey. We explore the costs and benefits of offering incentivized actions as users progress in their engagement with the game. We find sufficient conditions for when it is optimal to follow a threshold strategy of offering incentivized actions to low-engaged users and then remove them once a user is sufficiently engaged. We also provide insights into what types of games benefit most from offering incentivized actions. 4 - Process Capacity: Exact Analysis And The Bottleneck Formula Yang Bo, Naveen Jindal School of Management, The University of Texas at Dallas, 2200 Waterview Pkwy, Apt. 27304, Richardson, MD28 201B-MCC Operations Management for Fashion Goods Sponsored: Manufacturing & Service Oper Mgmt Sponsored Session Chair: Robert Swinney, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States, robert.swinney@duke.edu 1 - Attribute-based Modeling Of Product Recommendations Sajad Modaresi, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States, sajad.modaresi@duke.edu, Fernando Bernstein We study product recommendations through data analytics in the context of fashion retailing. Using a Bayesian semi-parametric approach, we identify customers with similar preferences for products, which is the basis for the product recommendation system. We test our results using a dataset from a large European clothing manufacturer. TX, 75080, United States, yxb120630@utdallas.edu, Milind Dawande, Tim Huh, Ganesh Janakiraman, Mahesh Nagarajan We offer a rigorous understanding of process capacity for a single-product process, culminating in a precise expression for this quantity. We also contrast this with the widely used formula based on bottle-neck capacity.

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