需求不确定性、生产能力投资和外包

Demand Uncertainty, Capacity Investment and Outsourcing

本文从需求不确定性的角度对外包的原因提供了一个新的解释 ,其中外包充当了一种风险分散机制。通常 ,厂商必须先进行不可逆转的生产能力投资 ,然后在需求实现后再决定产量的大小。这样 ,如果需求的实现值很小 ,厂商将因大量的生产能力闲置而损失惨重。本文表明 ,为了降低风险损失 ,如果存在外包机会 ,厂商将会策略性地缩减生产能力 ,而在供不应求时将业务外包 ;而且 ,和现有文献的结论不同 :即便在厂商的生产成本低于外包成本的情况下 ,外包依然可能出现。最后 ,在本文的简单框架下 ,我们可以得到全部外包、部分外包和不外包等各种可能的结果。

This paper argues that outsourcing can be a result of demand uncertainty. Ordinarily, a firm should first make irreversible capacity investment and then decide its quantity after the random demand is realized. Thus, if the realized demand is very small, the firm will suffer a great loss due to idle capacity. We show that, with opportunity of outsourcing, the firm will strategically reduce its capacity investment and resort to outsourcing when realized demand is very high. Moreover, even when the firm's in\|house production cost is lower than outsourcing, outsourcing is still possible.