Material Requirements planning (MRP) practices in Melaka manufacturing companies

This paper explores the combinations of quantitative and qualitative aspect of the effects of Material Requirements Planning (MRP) practices in Melaka industries. The objective s of this study a re to determine the actua l practices of MRP, the failure factors of MRP system, and methods used to cope with MRP failure. This study is based on the data obtained from mail survey and personal interview of manufacturing companies in Melaka . The particip ating companies were personally approached through telephone before sending the questionnaire or performing the interview. A total of 24 mail survey questionnaires were received through out the study and these data were analyzed using the Statistical Pack age for Social Science (SPSS) version 11.5. Data obtained from the 6 interview se ssions were transcribed verbatim manually and used as the qualitative approach to support the quantitative results for the study. The result of this study shows that most co mp any who adopts the MRP system modified the system according to their needs. In addition , the result also shows that human factors, data accuracy, demand uncertainty and supplier did actually affects the performance of MRP system. Methods for solving th e materials shortage such as rescheduling, multi - supplier, renegotiating date lines and others are utilized in order to achieve on - time delivery. On the whole, this study found that MRP system can be used as a tool to help a company to be competitive in global, but improvements and proper modifications should be done in order to achieve better performance. Furthermore , the involvement of an experienced worker is strongly recommended to reduce the failure rate as well as increase the efficiency of MRP sy stem. T his study is limited to manufacturing companies in Melaka only. Therefore , v the results obtained from this study are not suitable to be used as a guideline for other manufacturing companies in Malaysia