Inventory management under uncertainty: A military application

• We present a multi-objective fuzzy-stochastic inventory model for the military.
• The model determines the minimum stock level and order quantity for a single item.
• We test the reliability of the model through simulation.
• The reliabilities of the model and two well known inventory models are compared.
• The comparison shows that the presented is model more reliable in extreme scenarios.

Inventory management under uncertainty is a widely investigated field and many different types of inventory models have been used to address inventory problems in practice. However, a look at the literature reveals that few papers are devoted to inventory planning and management in environments characterised by uncertainty resulting from extreme events. In this paper a fuzzy-stochastic multi-objective modelling approach is used to address the problem of managing inventory in an environment characterised by uncertainty. The model is applied specifically to the military environment and determines the required stock level for a single item, based on three different scenarios. A numerical example is provided for the sake of illustration and the reliability of the model tested through simulation. The results are compared with those obtained from the well known (r,Qr,Q) and (s,Ss,S) inventory models in the literature. This comparison showed that the hybrid model presented in this paper is more reliable in extreme scenarios.