The state-of-the-art of MRP/MRP II implementation in Turkey

Abstract

Turkey is a developing country in Europe. Turkish manufacturing managers believe that it is necessary to take measures to decrease manufacturing costs in order to compete in international markets, and especially in the European market. It is suggested that MRP II is one of the techniques that provides a competitive advantage to a firm. Although it is well known that MRP or MRP II applications exist in Turkey, to date no empirical study has been conducted to examine and explain the implementation. The authors have conducted a large-scale survey to investigate the state-of-the-art of MRP/MRP II implementations in the Turkish manufacturing environment, and have designed a questionnaire that targeted the 500 largest firms. Questionnaire responses have been evaluated and findings presented to practitioners to inform them of the present situation, and to academicians for further research studies. In addition, these findings have been compared with those of studies conducted in Singapore and USA, looking in particular at such parameters as the usage rate of these systems, software acquisition, ABCD classification, etc.

Keywords:

• manufacturing resource planning
• inventory control
• implementation
• operations management
• software