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In view of the increasingly serious food quality problems, this paper carried out a three-level cold chain integrated inventory model research. First, this paper built an inventory model for the integrated three-echelon cold chain, and it determined the inventory and production of each member of the cold chain from the perspective of maximizing total profit in the supply chain. Secondly, this paper considered that demand was affected by product quality, and the metamorphic rate obeyed the three-parameter Weibull distribution. Therefore, it established a three-level cold chain inventory model with the total profit maximization as the objective function, at the same time, it solved the inventory and production volume of each member of the cold chain. Finally, it carried out the simulation on the case of a dairy stock-production problem in a cold chain. The conclusion verifies the validity of the model. This paper also conducted sensitivity analysis on the level of quality effort. The results show that when the supply chain strives for product quality at all levels, the overall profit of the supply chain is greater. Moreover, the greater the level of quality effort, the higher the profit in the supply chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The optimal pricing strategies for two substitutable products with different quality levels and the effect caused by the variance of quality levels are studied from the perspective of product architecture. The changes of profit and market share are analyzed when product architecture differs, in addition to the trend of consumer surplus with the variance of quality levels. The conclusion implies that the profit is largest under centralized supply chain at the sacrifice of market share of the integrated product. In a decentralized supply chain, the market share of a product is reduced when the producer adopt a modularization design of the product. When the producer tries to enhance the degree of integration of a product he acquires more flexibilities in designing the product line at the sacrifice of the market share of the other product. Finally, through the numerical study, the results are examined and it is found that the consumer surplus depends on the difference between consumer's perception of quality and variation of price rather than varying with quality level monotonously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]