An empirical investigation of different strategies for material requirements planning

Master production scheduling, component lot sizing, and capacity requirements planning represent three important modules of material requirements planning (MRP) systems. Coordinating these three modules has been largely dependent on managerial judgment and experience. In this research, five different strategies for integrating these modules are empirically investigated. These strategies differ mainly in the extent to which the modules are coordinated. The impact of the shop, product, component and cost characteristics is measured by varying ten experimental factors. The research findings so obtained provide several guidelines on the effectiveness of each strategy in different environmental settings.