Coordination of a dual-channel supply chain of smart elderly care service considering the integration level of products and services

Shenyang University of Technology, Shenyang 110870, Liaoning, P.R. China

^* Corresponding author: houqiaoming@sut.edu.cn

Received: 10 May 2024
Accepted: 10 April 2025

Abstract

This paper focuses on the field of smart pension supply chain, and proposes the integration of smart pension products and services for the first time. To expand the form of cooperation among supply chain members, and solve the imbalance between supply and demand of pension services. With the goal of improving the efficiency and service quality of elderly care services, the Hotelling and Stackelberg game model are used to describe the optimal decision-making process of the dual-channel supply chain of smart elderly care which composed of smart pension product service supplier (EPSP), integrator (EPSI) and logistics service providers (LSP), and the simulation analysis method is introduced to quantify the influence of key parameters on the optimal decision-making. The results show that the integration of pension products and services can significantly optimize the coordination effect of the dual-channel supply chain of smart pension, and increase the average value of comprehensive pension services to 5.81%. However, the difference in the level of logistics services and the complexity of member coordination will also cause the instability of the quality of elderly care services, which will increase the difficulty of dual-channel and logistics providers in the tripartite cooperation, and the overall coordination effect is not as good as that of the two parties. In general, promoting the integration of smart products and elderly care services, and strengthening the in-depth cooperation between online service platforms and LSPs will help to further optimize and coordinate the supply chain management mechanism of smart elderly care services and improve service quality. This study not only provides a decision-making basis for the government to support the development of the smart pension industry, but also provides a direction for follow-up research on the expansion of government subsidies and channel competition.