Solving Business Problems with MRP II

Personal Review: This book has been sitting on my bookshelf for quite some time (about 5 years) but I've finally decided to include it in the mySupplyChain Manufacturing book recommendations. It struck me reading a magazine article about yet another expanding mid-sized manufacturer struggling to use a manufacturing business system that there is still a place for a book that covers basic lessons on how to use (not implement) an MRP II package. This is quite a critical difference. 

Looking at the character based screenshots in the book may look old-fashioned compared to today's role based Internet portal graphical user interfaces (used by the tier 1 ERP packages) but three points should be noted:

1. Inside every ERP system is an MRP II system and inside that is an MRP package.

2. The basic principles, and thus mechanisms, of MRP systems have changed little since the 60's.

3. There are still niche industry business systems (such as in steel stockholding) being sold quite successfully that are character based.

Necessary But Not Sufficient

Personal Review: This is yet another book from the author of 'The Goal', now applying the theory of constraints to the ERP software industry. The title refers to IT being necessary but not sufficient. Follows the theme that ERP implementations should be targeted on value creation by starting with manufacturing constraint (drum-buffer-rope and buffer management) implementations to create value and then implementing the rest of the system around it.

Knowing most of the ERP big boys, I think the ERP software company in the book, 'BGSoft', is based on JDEdwards (who were bought by PeopleSoft who were then bought by Oracle).

Might be interesting to general operations professionals but really more of interest to ERP company employees.

Operations Management

Personal Review: This book is the Granddaddy of operations management text books. Its got the lot from line balancing, linear programming to SPC. It even includes the maths and case studies to back up the theory. You need this title on your book shelf.

Logistics and Supply Chain Management

Personal Review: This is the updated version of my original copy. Subtitled 'Creating Value - Adding Networks' this is a superb book if you want to learn about logistics and supply chain management in an easily digestible form. Summarizes all the key subject matter from the customer service angle, benchmarking supply chains and logistics costs and performance through the strategic issues to the Japanese techniques. 

Great for plucking quotes, such as 'uncertainty is the mother of inventory'. Lots of diagrams and case studies. I thoroughly recommend this book. As Professor of Marketing and Logistics at Cranfield, Martin Christopher is one of the leading lights in logistics.

The Goal

Eliyahu Goldratt, Jeff Cox
Paperback - 400 pages (July 2004)
Gower Publishing Limited; ISBN: 0566086654

Personal Review: An updated and reprinted version of my original. A mix between a Mills & Boon novel and a manufacturing theory book became an all-time classic. This is where the whole Optimised Production Technology and Constraint scheduling band-wagon all came from. A very readable book but don't think you can save your marriage by saving the factory like the main character Alex Rogo. The consultant Jonah who flies in with his gems of advice is obviously Eli himself. If you want to know what 'the goal' is check in the mySupplyChain glossary section under OPT or read the book.

It's Not Luck

Eliyahu M. Goldratt
Paperback - 283 pages (October, 2002)
Gower Publishing Limited; ISBN: 0566076276

Personal Review: This is the sequel to 'The Goal' with Alex Rogo riding up the corporate ladder to CEO this time. On the way he learns about Jonah's (Goldratt's) Thinking Processes where you solve problems by building a Current Reality Tree (a cause and effect flow diagram), which incorporates UnDesirable Effects (UDEs), and then a Future Reality Tree.

Some excellent business wisdom is presented including the thinking behind techniques like vendor managed inventory (VMI).

The Machine That Changed the World : The Story of Lean Production

James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones, Daniel Roos
Paperback - 336 pages (November 1991)
Harper Perennial; ISBN: 0060974176

Personal Review: Actually about lean techniques in the automotive industry. This is a landmark book in lean thinking. The book is based on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 5 million dollar, 5 year study on the future of the automobile.

Lean production is based on the work of Eiji Toyoda and his production 'genius', Taiichi Ohno, and the development of the Toyota Production system.

Lean Thinking

James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones
Paperback - 400 pages (June, 2003)
Touchstone; ISBN: 0743249275

Personal Review: This is really part two of 'The Machine That Changed The World'.

'Lean Thinking', really an extension of JIT principles, is applied to all kinds of industry sectors, with one of the authors actually making a personal financial commitment to one of the case studies.

Logistical Management: The Integrated Supply Chain Process

Donald J. Bowersox, David J. Closs
Paperback - 704 pages (May, 1996)
McGraw-Hill Publishing Company (ISE Editions); ISBN: 0071140700

Personal Review: 'The' textbook on logistical practices. Quite an American slant on logistical practices.

Manufacturing Strategy

Terry Hill
Paperback - 592 pages (October, 2000)
Palgrave Macmillan; ISBN: 0333762223

Personal Review: 'The' classic manufacturing strategy book. I have the first edition written in 1993.

Basically summarised into a recognition of product and process focus in manufacturing and the truth that corporate objectives, marketing strategy, how products win orders in the market place and manufacturing strategy from a process choice and infrastructure viewpoint are all interlinked steps in a single business process.

Production Management Systems

Jimmie Browne, James Shivnan, John Harhen
Hardcover - 456 pages (January, 1996)
FT Prentice Hall; ISBN: 0201422972

Personal Review: I own an early 1988 copy of this book written as a joint Digital (now Compaq) and University College Galway effort. Then it was subtitled 'A CIM Perspective'. A competent explanation of MRP, MRPII, JIT, OPT and kanban with excellent examples.

Implementing New Technologies

Ed Rhodes, David Wield
Paperback - 480 pages (September 1994)
Blackwell; ISBN: 0631178058

Personal Review: This is an Open University postgraduate manufacturing course core book that accompanied the T833 module.

The first part of the book covers papers on core economic and competitiveness, the innovation environment, strategy and innovation. The second part of the book entitled the interdependence of technology and organisation covers papers on technology, skills and work organisation, financing innovation and the dynamics of project organisation.