An interactive method for inventory control with fuzzy lead-time and dynamic demand

Normally, the real-world inventory control problems are imprecisely defined and human interventions are often required to solve these decision-making problems. In this paper, a realistic inventory model with imprecise demand, lead-time and inventory costs have been formulated and an inventory policy is proposed to minimize the cost using man–machine interaction. Here, demand increases with time at a decreasing rate. The imprecise parameters of leadtime, inventory costs and demand are expressed through linear/non-linear membership functions. These are represented by different types of membership functions, linear or quadratic, depending upon the prevailing supply condition and marketing environment. The imprecise parameters are first transformed into corresponding interval numbers and then following the interval mathematics, the objective function for average cost is changed into respective multiobjective functions. These functions are minimized and solved for a Pareto-optimum solution by interactive fuzzy decision-making procedure. This process leads to man–machine interaction for optimum and appropriate decision acceptable to the decision maker s firm. The model is illustrated numerically and the results are presented in tabular forms. 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.