EOQ in a Just in Time (JIT) World: An Empirical Analysis

With today¿s uncertain economy, companies are searching for alternative methods to keep ahead of their competitors by effectively driving sales and by cost reduction. Big manufacturing companies ¿ as well as other companies, do not stand a chance in today¿s environment if they do not have an appropriate inventory control model intact. The Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) and Just in Time (JIT) have been used for many years, but yet some companies have not taken advantage of it. An Economic order quantity could assist in deciding what would be the best optimal order quantity at the company¿s lowest price. Similarly JIT focuses on providing customers with stocks at the right time and with the right quantity thereby reducing in process inventory and carrying costs and maximizing profits at the same time (Gonzalez and Gonzalez, 2010). All these in place in any organization are known as its inventory management system which invariable needs to be as efficient as possible in other to reduce costs and translate in profit maximization. In recent times there has been a clarion call to abandon EOQ model in place of JIT.