Incorporating human learning into a fuzzy EOQ, inventory model with backorders

Even though publications on fuzzy inventory problems are constantly increasing, modelling the decision maker's characteristics and their effect on his/her decisions and consequently on the planning outcome has not attracted much attention in the literature. In order to fill this research gap and model reality more accurately, this paper develops a new fuzzy EOQ inventory model with backorders that considers human learning over the planning horizon. The paper is an extension of an existing EOQ inventory model with backorders in which both demand and lead times are fuzzified. Here, the assumption of constant fuzziness is relaxed by incorporating the concept of learning in fuzziness into the model considering that the degree of fuzziness reduces over the planning horizon. The proposed fuzzy EOQ inventory model with backorders and learning in fuzziness has a good performance in efficiency. Finally, it is worth mentioning that learning in fuzziness decreases the total inventory cost. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.