AbstractIt is often believed that the square root formula called the EOQ only applies to situations where customers demand small quantities at a fairly constant rate. This note shows that essentially the same formula can be derived for "lumpy" customer orders occurring at a variable rate. Also, as the EOQ is derived assuming that a fixed quantity is always ordered for replenishment it does not allow for the over-shoot when customer orders exceed the available stock. This note shows that when the EOQ is large relative to the average customer order the overshoot problem can be ignored. However, when the EOQ is small some tentative results involving exponentially distributed customer order quantities indicate that substantial savings can be made using a "minimum order quantity" policy.