Shortcomings and benefits associated with the implementation of Materials Requirement Planning packages: A survey research

This paper presents the results of a study of material requirements planning (MRP) implementation in the packaging machinery-building industry. The research, in particular, has addressed such issues as management and employee responses and the actual versus expected financial and production/logistics benefits. Some of the findings are that, generally, benefits of MRP packages include higher productivity and product quality, that attitudes towards the installations before installation were positive, that the majority of larger companies would purchase more advanced and integrated systems (MRP II and enterprise resource planning) in the future and that supplier involvement and project planning (this latter for larger firms) were important components of the effective management of MRP packages introduction.