Several heuristic procedures for purchase lot sizing in material requirements planning (MRP) systems were tested with actual data from manufaduring companies. Information provided by the companies for ea& purchased item included the cstimatal requirements and costs. the price discount structure from the vendor, and the actual company ordering policy. Simulation tests for each purchased item involved comparisons of several purchase lot-size procedures from the research literature along with the actual procedure used by the company providing the data. Rsults indicate that one of the heuristic lot-size procedures from the literature consistently outperformed the company policies as well as all other models tested. Another noteworthy result is that, in some cases, the actual company order policy was more cost-effective than some of the models from the research literature Subject Areas MahmW Requlmnmb P h & g and Ptvduction/@dons Management. LITERATURE Research efforts to incorporate quantity discount information into the timephased demand environment of MRP are relatively recent [4]. Mather [ll] made an early contribution by demonstrating how part-period balancing could be modified 348 3 50 Deckion Sciences [Vol. 20

The current goal of many US firms is to become the highest quality and lowest cost leaders in their markets. Achieving this goal requires major changes in how products and services are produced. Many systems have been developed to assist firms in accomplishing this goal; they include such diverse areas as Just‐in‐Time manufacturing (JIT), Material Resource Planning II (MRP II), Automatic Storage and Retrieval Systems (ASRS), Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), CAD/CAM, Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM), and Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS). One key element in the success of these systems is that accurate data concerning plant operations must be immediately available to those who need it. More and more frequently, this requirement is being addressed through the use of automatic data collection systems (ADC). Seeks to provide insights into the application of ADC systems in US industries. Considers the type of data collection system installed, the implementation and operational problems encountered, and the degree of success enjoyed by the firm using ADC. Data were gathered via a survey instrument administered to the membership of a national organization, the Institute of Certified Professional Managers (ICPM).

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