Decentralized Supply Chain Coordination with Revenue Sharing Mechanism: Transfer Pricing Heuristics and Revenue Share Rates

A revenue sharing contract is one of the mechanisms that coordinate decision makers in a decentralized supply chain toward the consensual goal. The transfer prices between different echelons in the supply chain influence the total supply chain profits. The study aims to explore various transfer pricing heuristics on the supply chain coordination in terms of the supply chain profits and their interactions with the revenue sharing rate. A model is proposed for formulating the collaborative production and distribution planning in a decentralized supply chain with the revenue sharing mechanism. Experiment results indicate that the transfer price and the revenue sharing rate affect significantly the coordination. Among the studied pricing heuristics, the variable-cost pricing method led to the best SC profits. Raising the revenue sharing rate reduced the SC profits no matter what heuristics were employed. Furthermore, the experiments provide us clues for finding the optimal transfer price for the supply chain.