Octagonal fuzzy neutrosophic number and its application to reusable container inventory model with container shrinkage

In supply chain management, the reusable containers are the main source of import and export trading. Import and export of the cargoes need some reusable transport items like containers for proper transportation process. Generally, the container management organization supplies the empty containers to multiple consigners for the purpose of transportation of cargoes. This paper scrutinizes the effect of inventory shrinkage on the reusable container inventory management system under neutrosophic arena. The octagonal fuzzy neutrosophic number (OFNN) is applied in this research and its de-neutrosophication is framed using ‘removal area method’. The container inventory model is proposed and formulated under neutrosophic environment by treating the demand of each consigner and the return rate as octagonal fuzzy neutrosophic numbers and interpreted with numerical computation. The notion of neutrosophic arena leads the model to reach approximate solutions under uncertain parameters. The sensitivity analysis is conferred to show the impact of the proportion of returned units on optimal solution under both crisp and neutrosophic arena.