Research Perspectives for Material Requirements Planning Systems. Paper No. 434.

Material requirements planning (MRP) systems are described as management tools for planning and controlling production operations. A wide variety of industries and production organizations are credited as reporting significant operating improvements in such areas as inventory control, production scheduling, delivery performance, and production costs when MRP systems are used. MRP systems are cited as making significant improvements in the management of plant operations by automating many of the routine decisions involved in scheduling the production of component parts and controlling the inventory levels of these items. This paper points out some of the areas in which additional knowledge would be useful for designing and implementing MRP systems, indicates promising areas of research to gain this knowledge, and reports some initial efforts in research on MRP systems. (Author/MLF)