Page 196 - Orlicky's Material Requirements Planning

CHAPTER 9 System Records and Files 175

implemented, normally are in a rather poor condition. This seems invariably true, par-
ticularly with manually maintained files of records related to product structure (i.e.,
BOMs), to inventory status, and to the manufacturing process proper (i.e., routings and
operation sheets). This is a result of the fact that the rate of change affecting these records
typically is not matched by a corresponding capacity of the responsible departments to
incorporate the changes in the files fully and properly.
When the functions of inventory management and production control that use the
information contained in these files are to be automated, the respective files normally
must be overhauled, restructured, recoded, and updated. This is usually recognized, and
file cleanup is carried out as a subproject of the system-implementation effort. But fixing
something is one thing and keeping it fixed is another. Files tend to deteriorate following
the conclusion of the fix-up effort. The reason for this is the extreme difficulty of manu-
ally maintaining any file that contains other than static information.
The task of file maintenance is not only difficult but requires such a large effort that
it becomes, in practice, virtually impossible to keep a voluminous file complete and
updated under manual methods with the meager resources normally allocated for this
function. A classic example is the typical BOM or a manufacturing routing file, both of
which consist of several tens of thousands of records encompassing active, inactive, semi-
obsolete, and obsolete parts. These files are constantly affected by so many changes that
true file maintenance can become a nightmare. This is so because many types of changes
literally explode throughout the file. A single such change may affect hundreds, and
sometimes thousands, of individual records.
The key to this problem is the staffing and budget provided for file maintenance,
which, in most cases, is simply insufficient. The planners of a new MRP system usually
recognize that pertinent files may have to be reorganized and updated, that in some cases
they must be enlarged and the complexity of their structure must be increased (see
Chapter 11), and that these files will have to be maintained rigorously in the future if the
new system is to function properly. Such demands often run into strong opposition by the
heads of departments responsible for maintaining these files because they foresee the
increase in file-maintenance costs that has not been budgeted.
Furthermore, these department heads are sensitive to the cost performance of their
functions, and this is why they may be reluctant to request additional funds for the main-
tenance of files to new, higher standards, particularly when they themselves are not the
primary beneficiaries of increased file data integrity. Even when forced to augment their
capacity for file maintenance, they may tend to bleed it at times of various departmental
crises and particularly during cost-cutting drives. File maintenance may be economized
on without the consequences becoming immediately apparent—but it eventually may
prove very costly in terms of impaired system effectiveness.
Management traditionally has been reluctant to face up to the problem of file main-
tenance, yet even the old manual systems were built around the implicit assumption of
file data integrity, and violations of this assumption impaired the effectiveness of such
systems. Because these systems were entirely people-based, however, they got by with-