The inventory replenishment problem with a linear trend in demand

Abstract This paper relaxes the restrictive assumption of constant demand rate that is often used in the inventory economic order quantity model. The paper also proposes a simple fixed-horizon algorithm for the inventory replenishment problem with a linear trend in demand. The algorithm is based on an iterative numerical procedure that generates the optimal replenishment schedule for both growing and declining markets. Two numerical examples from the literature are included to illustrate the algorithm.