Incorporating maintenance activities into production planning; Integration at the master schedule versus material requirements level

This study evaluates the impact of incorporating alternative scheduled maintenance policies or predicted emergency maintenance activities into the MRP system. The results indicate that it is critical to evaluate the failure and utilization characteristics of each machine individually so an appropriate maintenance policy can be established. Otherwise, a firm may implement scheduled maintenance when the costs of the policy actually outweigh the benefits gained by reducing emergency maintenance. Additional results suggest that by incorporating emergency maintenance into the MRP system as a dependent demand item, firms may be able to plan and allocate their resources more efficiently.