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A way of initiating and sustaining the implementation of total quality management (TQM) by exploiting the widely adopted manufacturing resource planning (MRP II) is presented. A detailed analysis of MRP II software has found that they have a number of inherent features that can be further extended to organizational performance including operations efficiency, responsiveness, company‐wide problem‐solving capability and product quality. This paper contributes in the development of a model for the MRP II with the incorporation of mechanisms to initiate a culture change in the organization towards TQM. In the adaptation of MRP II to guide the implementation of TQM, a structural analysis technique was proposed to help develop a model and methodology for the integration. In the structural analysis, an IDEF model of a “reference” company structure was created to illustrate and describe the integration. The reference company, which is a lamp manufacturer, is used to illustrate the systematic implementation of the TQM philosophy through adaptation of the MRP II software. The study demonstrates that MRP II can be adapted to provide the drive for effective implementation of TQM for productivity and profits.

Argues that the effective management of technological change requires transformational leadership, and that one of the principal tools employed by the transformational leader is rites. Rites are elaborate, dramatic, planned sets of activities that promote change in individuals at both the psychological and the behavioural level. Illustrates the various ways in which managers are able to facilitate change through the use of social rites using data drawn from 12 detailed case studies of Manufacturing Resource Planning II (MRP II) implementations. While the focus of the article is primarily on technological change, it is clear that the lessons drawn here are more generally applicable.

Material requirements planning (MRP) systems have become the most effective and widely used inventory control systems across the world. Many operation managers have found the vast knowledge that MRP systems provide is absolutely necessary to effectively and competitively succeed in the current global economy. Although MRP systems have been in existence for almost 25 years, they have had their share of problems and are both challenged and enhanced by new supply chain management techniques and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. As the world wide web evolves into a global market of information, the information provided by MRP systems, in particular ERP systems, will be necessary in order for businesses to compete in the global marketplace.

This paper proposes a relationship between decision making and key qualities of business systems.

The authors explore the relationship between decision making and systems by contrasting the decision making in two well‐known systems: MRP and JIT. The two systems present two sets of opposing qualities. By considering the relationship between a decision and its environment, we propose that these sets of qualities are not unique to MRP and JIT. They arise from two general approaches to decision making. Having introduced the two approaches, we analyze three product development systems: Stage‐Gate, Agile and Lean.

In manufacturing, MRP is a push system; JIT is a pull system. MRP seeks perfection; JIT seeks consistency. MRP gives decision makers great discretion; JIT constrains decisions. These opposing qualities, and others, arise from two general approaches to decision making: outside‐in and inside‐out. As the difficulty of decisions increase, relative to a decision maker's ability, the cost of mistakes becomes significant. In these situations, the inside‐out approach should outperform the outside‐in approach. The inside‐out approach constrains decision making to limit the cost of errors. The outside‐in approach embraces complexity, exposing itself to more decision errors. In product development, the Lean and Agile systems exploit the inside‐out approach. They constrain decisions and reduce the cost of errors that arise from two sources. Lean addresses interactions, which add complexity to business systems. Agile addresses unpredictability, which adds uncertainty to business systems.

The relationships the authors propose show how decision making affects the development, control and performance of business systems.

Outlines the concept of material requirements planning (MRP), showing how the tool offers management the capability to identify the products that were actually going to be produced. Explains how the system formalized and integrated various production and strategic requirements while quantifying usable output in an efficient manner. Considers the development of MRP II and how this encompasses several identifiable variables including reduced inventory, improved customer service, improved direct labour productivity and reduced purchased costs. Provides some practical examples of application.

To develop a methodology to augment enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems with the discrete event simulation's inherent ability to handle the uncertainties.

The ERP system still contains and uses the material requirements planning (MRP) logic as its central planning function. As a result, the ERP system inherits a number of shortcomings associated with the MRP system, including unrealistic lead‐time determination. The developed methodology employs bi‐directional feedback between the non‐stochastic ERP system and the discrete event simulation model until a set of converged lead times is determined.

An example of determining realistic production lead‐time data in the ERP system is presented to illustrate how such a marriage can be achieved.

The research demonstrates that the limited planning functionality of the ERP system can be complemented by external system such as discrete event simulation models. The specific steps developed for this research can be adopted for other enhancements in different but comparable situations.

The organizations who have been using the discrete event simulation in their planning and decision‐making processes can integrate their simulation models and the ERP system following the steps presented in this paper. The ideas in this paper can be used to look for automatic data collection process to update or build the simulation models.

The ERP implementation is a significant investment for any corporation. Once the ERP implementation is completed successfully, the corporations must look for ways to maximally return on their investment. The research results may be used to enhance the implemented ERP systems or to fully utilize the capabilities in a corporation.

Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is a simple decision‐making tool to deal with complex, unstructured and multi‐attribute problems. Selection of the most suitable production planning system (push or pull systems) requires the development of a tool to address quantitative and qualitative parameters which influence success of push‐and‐pull systems’ implementation. This paper presents a multi‐criteria approach within AHP to classify the most appropriate production planning system, based on push, pull or hybrid systems’ methodologies.

The concept of “routines” is used to classify diverse enterprise application systems (EAS) into a framework. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the theoretical underpinnings and EAS falling into each of the framework quadrants. The framework provides a guideline for firms to meet their EAS‐organizational alignment challenges.

The EAS‐organizational alignment framework in this paper is developed through a synthesis of literature. The framework links EAS and organizational routines according to intra‐ and inter‐levels of organizational analysis and inflexible and flexible governance mechanisms.

The findings suggest that a fit between EAS routines and organizational routines leads to successful EAS deployments and hence improved business performance.

The findings provide researchers with reasons to incorporate routines into existing research models to better explain EAS‐organizational alignment. The next step is to empirically validate the EAS‐organizational alignment framework.

Firms can gain an understanding of how EAS routines and organizational routines can be manipulated to positively influence EAS‐organizational alignment and hence increase business performance. Firms can use routines as strategic tools for adoption and successful deployment of EAS across their global operations.

The paper's findings provide a perspective, different from past research, on our understanding of EAS‐organizational alignment and offer valuable guidance for future research in this area.