A survey of Irish electronic industries towards development of a low cost MRP system to enhance the effectiveness of their inventory control

Abstract

This thesis is predominantly concerned with the study of inventory control practices within the electronics industry in Ireland. The study o f the inventory control system has been carried out under three main interrelated sections: Industrial Survey Development of an MRP Model Development of a Material Flow Simulation Model. First, an industrial survey carried out to identify the common problems and challanges related to the electronics industry sector with respect to their inventory control systems. The results o f the industrial survey representing 44 companies are presented. The survey classifies the Irish Electronics industry sector in terms of company size, product structure and MRP levels. Second, based on the industrial survey results a low cost MRP model has been developed to enhance the effectiveness of their inventory control system. The model has been solved for a variety of product structures using standard mathematical programming packages. The results obtained are compared to those of standard MRP hot sizing techniques. The third section involves the development of a material flow simulation model using the SIMAN simulation package. The model is tested under a variety of operating conditions and performance statistics collected and analysed