中文摘要：

为缓解供应商日趋激烈的同质化竞争,并促进实施上游段VMI模式在企业中的运用,有必要研究产品差异化对一个制造商和两个供应商组成的供应链的影响。以汽车行业供应链中的上游钢材供应商为例,结合Hotelling模型、制造商效用函数及供应商的利润函数,建立强势、弱势供应商之间的博弈支付矩阵,发现产品差异化策略既能够实现不同水平的供应商实现共赢局面,也能够为制造商留出选择余地。这为产品差异化策略在上游段VMI模式的应用,提供了理论依据。

英文摘要：

In order to ease the increasingly fierce homogeneous competition among suppliers and promote the upstream VMI application,the influence of product differentiation on the supply chain composed of one manufacturer and two suppliers is studied with the automotive upstream steel supplier as a case study and via a strong- weak supplier game payoff matrix established by combining Hotelling model,manufacturer utility function and supplier function. It is found that product differentiation strategy can not only make the suppliers at different levels to achieve a win- win situation,but also set aside options for manufacturers. And this will provide a theoretical basis for product differentiation strategy to be applied in upstream VMI model.