Understanding the Demand Driven Material Requirements Planning Scope of Application: a Critical Literature Review

The supply chains complexity generated by the dynamic market demand imposes the improvement of the classical production control systems. A recently introduced method, the Demand Driven Material Requirements Planning (DDMRP), is proposed as an upgrade of the Material Requirements Planning (MRP), widely used in industry, capable of overcoming the nervousness of MRP environment and the bullwhip effect affecting supply chains under uncertainties. The DDMRP approach, however, is still not well established since the conditions for its application are still little investigated. Thus, this study aims at reviewing the existing scientific literature concerning DDMRP method in order to critically analyse its main scope of application as well as its real practical performance. From the reviewed literature three main research lines emerged: DDMRP basic principles, comparison with other methodologies, and case studies. The analysis of both research oriented papers and case studies points out some critical issues that are limiting the diffusion of the DDMRP method, including the additional costs necessary to adapt the in use control and planning software. The main criticality of the method is recognized to be the high subjectivity affecting the positioning of the buffers, and the need for classifying the suitable sectors of application.