Dependent policy solutions for order quantity problems with time variation in demand

Abnormal time periods and normal time periods are distinguished in the planning horizon in light of the economic order quantity (EOQ) and the time-varying demands in the periods. The performance of EOQ policy, dependent policies and independent policies are discussed and the optimal structure of dependent policies for EOQ problems with time-varying demands is proposed. A heuristic combined with dependent policies is presented to solve a type of time varying demand with which the first time period is normal. The theory, analysis and some simulation showed that the proposed heuristic is better than a static model in the case that there exist multiple normal periods in the planning horizon.