Learning and Forgetting in Production-inventory Systems with Perishable Seasonal Items

The consideration of learning and forgetting effects on production–inventory system is usually based on the assumption that item produced by the system have a constant or unidirectional demand pattern. The demand pattern for perishable seasonal product, however, is often a mixture of increasing, steady and decreasing functions of time. This study develops an EPQ model for perishable seasonal products having three-phase ramp-type demand pattern. We further investigate the effect of learning and forgetting in set-up on the optimal schedules and costs of the production-inventory system with this category of items. The study shows that learning-based reduction in set-up costs can be used to achieve some vital aspects of the just-in-time (JIT) philosophy.