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                                                     Seminar

             Department of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management
                                  The Chinese University of Hong Kong

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Title

:

Joint Optimization of Pricing Strategies and Inventory Control with Continuous Stochastic Demand

　

　

　

Speaker

:

Mr. Yongqiang Wang

　

　

Electrical and Computer Engineering Department

　

　

University of Maryland

　

　

　

Date

:

Jan. 26th, 2011 (Wednesday)

　

　

　

Time

:

1:30 p.m-2:30 p.m.

　

　

　

Venue

:

Room 513

　

　

William M.W. Mong Engineering Building

　

　

(Engineering Building Complex Phase 2)

　

　

CUHK

　

　

　

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Abstract:
　

With the rapid expansion of the Internet and e-commerce, consumers have easier access to prices of products.  Pricing is one of the most effective tools that can be manipulated to encourage or discourage demand, especially price-sensitive customers. We analyze the problem of dynamic pricing for inventory systems with price-sensitive demand, which is assumed to follow a continuous-time, continuous-state stochastic process. An analytical solution of the dynamic pricing problem for a special case of the demand model is provided.
For more general demand models, we propose a simulation-based method for solving the dynamic pricing problem, assuming a finite number of price changes over the time horizon of interest.  In the framework of our simulation-based algorithm, jointly optimizing the prices and the initial inventory level can be carried out simultaneously. Convergence of the algorithm is proved and revenue management problems over both a finite horizon and an infinite horizon are addressed. Numerical examples demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm. At the end of the talk, I will describe recent work on a novel simulation optimization framework for global optimization that is based on evolutionary game theory.


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Biography:
　

Yongqiang Wang is a Ph.D candidate in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Maryland, College Park. He received B.E and M.S degrees from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China in 2003 and 2006, respectively. Currently, his research is focused on simulation optimization, stochastic derivative estimation, analysis and control of stochastic systems, and Markov decision processes, with application to supply chain management and financial engineering. He received the 2010 INFORMS Computing Society (ICS) Student Paper Award, and the 2010 Winter Simulation Conference Best Student Paper Award (OR/MS-focused).


************************* ALL ARE WELCOME ************************

　

　

　

Host

:

Prof. Nan Chen

Tel

:

(852)2609 8237

Email

:

nchen@se.cuhk.edu.hk

　

　

　

Enquiries

:

Prof. Nan Chen or Prof. Sean X. Zhou

　

:

Department of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management

　

　

CUHK

Website

:

http://www.se.cuhk.edu.hk/~seem5201

Email

:

seem5201@se.cuhk.edu.hk

　

　

　

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