Reliability-constrained pricing, capacity, and quality: An illustration of economic concepts to postal services

Production and Operations Management

Volumn 8, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 92-107

  Boronico, Jess S ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

Postal services; Pricing; Reliability

Indexed keywords

EID: 0040216528     PISSN: 10591478     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1937-5956.1999.tb00063.x     Document Type: Article

References (69)

1. th USPS Advanced Technology Conference, 3, 1381-1392.
2. BERRY, L., V. ZEITHAML, AND A. PARASURAMAN (1990), "Five Imperatives for Improving Service Quality," Sloan Management Review, 31, Summer, 29-38.
3. BOITEAUX, M. (1960), "Peak Load Pricing," Journal of Business, 33, 2, 157-179.
4. BOLTON, R. (1989), "The Robustness of Retail-Level Price Elasticity Estimates," Journal of Retailing, 65, 2, 193-218.
5. BORONICO, J. S.,CREW, M. A., AND KLEINDORFER, P. R. (1995), "Postal Service in the Nineties," in The Service Productivity and Quality Challenge, P. Harker (ed.), Kluwer Academic Press, Massachusetts, 471-492.
6. BRADLEY (1991), "Making Quality Fly," Purchasing, 110, January 17, 100.
7. BROGOWICZ, A. A. (1990), "A Synthesized Service Quality Model With Managerial Implications," International Journal of Service Industry Management, 1, 1, 27-45.
8. BROWN, G. JR. AND JOHNSON, M. B. (1969), "Public Utility Pricing and Output Under Risk," American Economic Review, 59, March, 119-28.
9. BURNS, R. N. AND CARTER, M. W. (1985), "Work Force Size and Single Shift Schedules With Variable Demands," Management Science, 31, 5, 599-607.
10. CARLTON, D. W. (1977), "Peak Load Pricing With Stochastic Demand," American Economic Review, 67, 5, 1006-10.
11. CHASE, R. B. (1981), "The Customer Contact Approach to Services: Theoretical Bases and Practical Extensions," Operations Research, 21, 4, 698-705.
12. _ AND BOWEN, D. E. (1991), "Service Quality and the Service Delivery System: A Diagnostic Framework," in Service Quality: Multidisciplinary and Multinational Perspectives, S. W. Brown, E. Gummesson, B. Edvardsson and B. Gustavsson (eds.), Lexington Books, New York, 157-178.
13. CHEN, L. J., GUPTA, A. AND ROM, W. (1994), "A Study of Price and Quality in Service Operations," International Journal of Service Industry Management, 5, 2, 23-34.
14. COASE, R. (1947), "The Economics of Uniform Pricing Systems," Manchester School of Economic and Social Studies, 15, 2, 139-156.
15. COHEN, R. H., FERGUSON, W. W. AND XENAKIS, S. S. (1993), "Rural Delivery and the Universal Service Obligation: A Quantitative Investigation," in Regulation and the Evolving Nature of Postal and Delivery Services, M. A. Crew and P. R. Kleindorfer (eds.), Kluwer Academic Publishers, Hingham, MA, 161-176.
16. COLVIN, J. L., BRADLEY, D. B. AND SMITH, M. A. (1993), "Measuring Product Costs for Ratemaking: U.S. Postal Service," In Regulation and the Evolving Nature of Postal and Delivery Services, M. A. Crew and P. R. Kleindorfer (eds.), Kluwer Academic Publishers, Hingham, MA, 133-157.
17. CREW, M. A. AND KLEINDORFER, P. R. (1979), Public Utility Economics, St. Martin's Press, New York.
18. _ AND _ (1986), The Economics of Public Utility Regulation, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
19. _, _ AND SMITH, M. A. (1990), "Peak-Load Pricing in Postal Services," Economic Journal, 100, 402: September, 793-807.
20. DARDANONI, V. (1988), "Optimal Choices Under Uncertainty: The Case of Two-Argument Utility Functions," Economic Journal, 98, 391, 429-450.
21. DESOUZA, G. (1989), "Now Service Businesses Must Manage Quality," Journal of Business Strategy, 10, 3, 21-26.
22. DOBBENBERO, P. (1993), "The International Mail Market in the 1990s," In Regulation and the Nature of Postal and Delivery Services, M. A. Crew and P. R. Kleindorfer (eds.), Kluwer Academic Publishers, Hingham, MA, 207-216.
23. DOBBS, I. AND RICHARDS, P. (1991), "Assessing the Welfare Effects of Entry Into Letter Delivery," in Competition and Innovation in Postal Services, M. A. Crew and P. R. Kleindorfer (eds.), Kluwer Academic Publishers, Hingham, MA, 61-87.
24. DOTCHIN, A. AND OAKLAND, J. S. (1994), "Total Quality Management in Services," International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, 11, 3, 9-43.
25. EVANS, J. R. AND LINDSAY, W. M. (1996), The Management and Control of Quality, West Publishing Company, MN.
26. FARRELL, MICHAEL J. (1958), "In Defense of Public Utility Price Theory," Oxford Economic Papers, 10, February, 109-123.
27. GARVIN, D. A. (1987), "Competing on the Eight Dimensions of Quality," Harvard Business Review, 65, November-December, 101-109.
28. GEARY, R. C. (1950), "A Note on the Constant Utility Index of the Cost of Living," Review of Economic Studies, 18, 2, 65-66.
29. HACKETT (1987), "Lessons From the Service Sector," Harvard Business Review, 65, 2, 118-26.
30. HART, C. (1988), "The Power of Unconditional Service Guarantees," Harvard Business Review, 66, 4, 56-62.
31. HEADLEY, D. E. AND CHOI, B. (1992), "Achieving Service Quality," Journal of Services Marketing, 6, 1, 5-10.
32. ITTIG, P. T. (1994), "Planning Service Capacity When Demand is Sensitive to Delay," Decision Sciences, 25, 4, 541-559.
33. JARRAH, A. I. Z., BARD, J. F., DESILVA, A. H. (1992), "A Heuristic for Machine Scheduling at General Mail Facilities," European Journal of Operational Research, 63, 2, 192-206.
34. _ (1994), "Equipment Selection and Machine Scheduling in General Mail Facilities," Management Science, 40, 8, 1049-1068.
35. _ (1994a), "Solving Large-Scale Tour Scheduling Problems," Management Science, 40, 9, 1124-44.
36. KARP, L. S. (1988), "Dynamic Hedging With Uncertain Production," International Economic Review, 29, 4, 621-637.
37. KLEIN, L. R. AND RUBIN, H. (1947), "A Constant Utility Index of the Cost of Living," Review of Economic Studies, 15, 84-87.
38. KRAJEWSKI, L. J. AND RITZMAN, L. P. (1977), "Disaggregation in Manufacturing and Service Organizations: Survey of Problems and Research," Decision Sciences, 8, 2, 1-18.
39. LEE, H. AND COHEN, M. (1985), "Equilibrium Analysis of Disaggregate Facility Choice Systems Subject to Congestion-Elastic Demand," Operations Research, 33, 2, 293-311.
40. LEIBENSTEIN, H. (1966), "Allocative Efficiency Versus X-Efficiency," American Economic Review, 56, 3, 392-415.
41. LEWIS, B. R. (1989), "Quality in the Service Sector," International Journal of Bank Marketing, 7, 5, 4-13.
42. _ AND MITCHELL, V. W. (1990), "Defining and Measuring the Quality of Customer Service," Marketing Intelligence and Planning, 8, 6, 11-18.
43. LIPSEY, R. E. AND LANCASTER, K. M. (1956), "The General Theory of Second Best," Review of Economic Studies, 24, 1, 11-32.
44. LOVEJOY, W. S. (1992), "Stopped Myopic Policies in Some Inventory Models With Generalized Demand Processes," Management Science, 38, 5, 688-707.
45. LOVELOCK, C. H. (1984), "Strategies for Managing Capacity-Constrained Service Organizations," Services Industry Journal, 4, November, 18-30.
46. MACCINI, L. AND ZABEL, E. (1996), "Serial Correlation in Demand, Backlogging and Production Volatility," International Economic Review, 37, 2, 423-452.
47. MALHOTRA, M. K., AND RITZMAN, L. P. (1994), "Scheduling Flexibility in the Service Sector: A Postal Case Study," Production and Operations Management, 3, 2, 100-117.
48. _, BENTON, W. C., AND LEONG, G. K. (1992), "A Model for Scheduling Postal Distribution Employees," European Journal of Operational Research, 58, 3, 374-385.
49. MONROE, K. (1990), Pricing: Making Profitable Decisions, McGraw Hill, New York.
50. PANZER, J. C. (1976), "A Neoclassical Approach to Peak Load Pricing," Bell Journal of Economics, 7, Autumn, 521-530.
51. _ (1993), "Competition, Efficiency, and the Vertical Structure of Postal Services," in Regulation and the Nature of Postal and Delivery Services, M. A. Crew and P. R. Kleindorfer (eds.), Kluwer Academic Publishers, Hingham, MA, 91-105.
52. PARASURAMAN, A., ZEITHAML, V. A., AND BERRY, L. L. (1986), SERVQVAL: A Multiple-Item Scale for Measuring Consumer Perceptions of Service Quality. Marketing Science Institute, Cambridge, MA.
53. POTTER, J. AND LAZAROWITZ, S. (1991), "Request of the United States Postal Service for an Advisory Opinion on a Change in First Class Delivery Standards," Docket #N86-1, Postal Rate Commission, Washington, DC.
54. PRESSMAN, I. (1970), "A Mathematical Formulation of the Peak-Load Pricing Problem," Bell Journal of Economics, 1, Autumn, 304-326.
55. RAO, R. C. AND BASS, F. M. (1985), "Competition, Strategy, and Price Dynamics: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation," Journal of Marketing Research, 22, 2, 283-96.
56. RITZMAN, L. P., KRAJEWSKI, L. P., AND SHOWALTER, M. J. (1976), "The Disaggregation of Aggregate Manpower Plans," Management Science, 22, 2, 1204-1214.
57. SHERMAN, R. AND GEORGE, A. (1979), "Second-Best Pricing for the US Postal Service," Southern Economic Journal, 45, January, 685-695.
58. SHOWALTER, M. J., KRAJEWSKI, L. J., AND RITZMAN, L. P. (1978), "Manpower Allocation in U.S. Postal Facilities: A Heuristic Approach," Computers and Operations Research, 2, 3, 141-153.
59. SMITH, F. W. (1990), "Absolutely, Positively Quality," Quality Progress, 23, 5, 24-29.
60. STARR, M. K. (1996), Operations Management: A Systems Approach, Boyd and Fraser Publishing Company, Massachusetts.
61. STEINER, P. O. (1957), "Peak Loads and Efficiency Pricing," Quarterly Journal of Economics, 71, November, 585-610.
62. STONE, R. (1954), "Linear Expenditure Systems and Demand Analysis: An Application to the Pattern of British Demand," Economic Journal, 64, 255, 511-527.
63. ULVILA, J. W. (1987), "Postal Automation Technology (Zip + 4): A Decision Analysis," Interfaces, 17, March-April, 1-12.
64. VENDERMERWE, S. (1993), Tin Soldiers to Russina Dolls, Butterworth-Heinemann, Ltd., Oxford, UK.
65. VISSCHER, M. L. (1973), "Welfare-Maximizing Price and Output With Stochastic Demand: Comment," American Economic Review, 63, March, 224-29.
66. WATTLES, G. M. (1973), "The Rates and Costs of the United States Postal Service," Journal of Law and Economics, 16, April, 89-117.
67. ZEITHAML, V. A. (1988), "Consumer Perceptions of Price, Quality, and Value: A Means-End Model and Synthesis of Evidence," Journal of Marketing, 52, July, 2-22.
68. _, BERRY, L. L., AND PARASURAMAN, A. (1988), "Communication and Control Processes in the Delivery of Service Quality," Journal of Marketing, 52, April, 35-48.
69. _, PARASURAMAN, A. AND BERRY, L. L. (1990), Delivering Quality Service, Free Press, New York.