JultikaUniversity of Oulu repository

Abstract

Increasing variability in the supply chain is one of the key challenges companies face in today’s environment. It has been claimed that traditional material planning methodologies are not sufficient to ensure both high On-Time Delivery and low working capital. A new theory has been developed called Demand Driven Material Requirements Planning (DDMRP) to be able to cope with both supply and demand variability in today’s environment. The aim of this thesis is to research literature surrounding the topic DDMRP to find out what kind of results in industries have been documented in the implementation of DDMRP and what challenges and improvements are proposed to DDMRP in literature. The results achieved mostly concise of simulations of the performance of DDMRP. However, the few case studies conducted also give promising results. The main challenges in the implementation of DDMRP are the high subjectivity and no set processes for the parameterization of the strategic buffers and their positions. The improvements have only been tested in simulations but give promising results. Further research through case studies is needed to confirm the promising results of DDMRP.