  Selecting the appropriate production planning and control systems (PPCS)
presents a significant challenge for many companies, as their performance, i.e.
overall costs, depends on the production system environment. Key environmental
characteristics include the system's structure, i.e. flow shop, hybrid shop, or
job shop, and the planned shop load. Besides selecting a suitable PPCS, its
parameterization significantly influences the performance. This publication
investigates the performance and the optimal parametrization of Material
Requirement Planning (MRP), Reorder Point System (RPS) and Constant Work In
Progress (ConWIP) at different stochastic multi-item multi-stage production
system environments by conduction a comprehensive full factorial simulation
study. The results indicate that MRP and ConWIP generally outperform RPS in all
observed environments. Moreover, when comparing MRP with ConWIP, the
performance clearly varies depending on the specific production system
environment.
