Revenue Optimization for a Make-to-Order Queue in an Uncertain Market Environment
Penn collection
Degree type
Discipline
Subject
dynamic pricing
market uncertainty
queueing
state-dependent queues
asymptotic analysis
Business Administration, Management, and Operations
Marketing
Funder
Grant number
License
Copyright date
Distributor
Related resources
Author
Contributor
Abstract
We consider a revenue-maximizing make-to-order manufacturer that serves a market of price- and delay-sensitive customers and operates in an environment in which the market size varies stochastically over time. A key feature of our analysis is that no model is assumed for the evolution of the market size. We analyze two main settings: (i) the size of the market is observable at any point in time; and (ii) the size of the market is not observable and hence cannot be used for decision making. We focus on high-volume systems that are characterized by large processing capacities and market sizes, and where the latter fluctuate on a slower timescale than that of the underlying production system dynamics. We develop an approach to tackle such problems that is based on an asymptotic analysis and that yields near-optimal policy recommendations for the original system via the solution of a stochastic fluid model.