Abstract

Operations that depend on transportation vehicles experience a high degree of uncertainty in fuel costs. We construct and analyze the engineering economic problem of how to value flexibility when the vehicle design under consideration enables fuel savings in the future by incurring an initial cost for the vehicle to incorporate features that will support future modifications. For a vehicle manufacturer working with a customer, we derive the optimal threshold fuel costs to incorporate such features and to decommission under the net benefit maximization through a real options approach. From these derivations as well as an illustrative example in the case of winglets for aircraft, we present the managerial insights and economic implications of the flexible design in transportation vehicles.

摘要

依赖运输车辆的运营在燃料成本方面存在高度不确定性。我们构建并分析了工程经济问题，即当考虑中的车辆设计通过为车辆纳入支持未来修改的功能而产生初始成本时，可以在未来节省燃料时如何重视灵活性。对于与客户合作的汽车制造商，我们通过实物期权方法推导出最佳阈值燃料成本，以结合这些功能并在净收益最大化的情况下退役。从这些推导以及飞机小翼案例中的说明性示例，我们提出了运输车辆灵活设计的管理见解和经济意义。