The EOQ theory and a future research agenda

Determining the economic lot size has always represented one of the most important issues in production planning. This problem has long attracted researchers' attention so that several models have been developed to determine the minimum production/purchase costs. For this reason, literature presents many papers on this topic. In this paper we explore and discuss the evolution of these models during one hundred years of history, starting from the basic model developed by Harris in 1913, up to today (2013). After Harris’ work in fact, several researchers added some conditions attempting to reflect real cases as well as possible. Here we outline all the research areas faced in the past, trying to give a complete scene of the existing study on the EOQ problem. In the last part of this article we analyze an interesting new area of research: the lot sizing problem when sustainability considerations are considered, problem faced at first by Bonney and Jaber in 2011. Sustainability in fact is becoming more and more a key requirement for the future global economy. The value of this paper resides in its ability to structurally gather most of the information available in the Lot Sizing research area, which is usually scattered in several different works, by developing a new framework. Finally, a new research agenda is here defined and discussed.