Int. J. Production Economics 64 (2000) 319}329
The selection of information systems for
production management: An evolving problem
R. Beach!, A.P. Muhlemann!, D.H.R. Price!,*, A. Paterson", J.A. Sharp"
!University of Bradford Management Centre, Emm Lane, Bradford BD9 4JL, UK
"Canterbury Business School, University of Kent, Canterbury CT2 7NX, UK
Abstract
The incidence of successful implementations of computer technology in manufacturing enterprises is disappointingly
low. This paper argues that the selection of the manufacturing management information system is an essential activity in
successful implementation, and that the problem is becoming more complex. A full account of the selection process used
by one UK manufacturer is described to illustrate the bene"ts of using a selection and evaluation methodology based on
the systematic application of several simple but e!ective procedures. ( 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Production management; Information systems; Selection methodology; Case study
1. Introduction
Conventional wisdom has traditionally dictated
that proprietary information system solutions
should be considered before bespoke or hybrid
alternatives. A principle reason behind this maxim
is that proprietary information systems embody
`best practicea and thus represent an opportunity
for an enterprise to eradicate wasteful and ine$c-
ient aspects of their practices. Therefore, the em-
phasis in the conventional selection procedure has
tended to focus on the availability of functionality
and cost bene"ts, rather than the ability of the
information system to support the enterprise's
mode of operation, i.e. the sequence of activities
necessary to accomplish a task, e.g. processing
*Corresponding author. Tel.: #44 01274 234351; fax:
#44 01274 232311.
E-mail address: D.H.R.Price@bradford.ac.uk (D.H.R. Price)
a sales order, procuring materials or planning
production. This was further compounded by tech-
nological constraints that limited the degree of
operational divergence between systems and made
checks on operational mismatch largely unnecess-
ary as they were procedurally, very similar.
The business environment of the late 1970s and
early 1980s, was characterised by stable demand,
less product variety, longer life cycles and lead
times [1]. In this environment the rationale behind
the introduction of computer support for produc-
tion management was cost reduction through the
elimination of unnecessary inventory and work-
in-progress. The emphasis of these early informa-
tion system models was the synchronisation of
supply and demand through improved planning
procedures. The Material Requirements Planning
(MRP) model was developed to meet these objec-
tives and has come to represent the de facto stan-
dard for the current Manufacturing Management
Information System (MMIS).
0925-5273/00/$ - see front matter ( 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 9 2 5 - 5 2 7 3 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 6 9 - 9

The present business environment is very di!er-
ent to that of 20 years ago. Cost and quality, are no
longer necessarily principal order winners and
product functionality cannot alone be relied upon
to achieve di!erentiation from competitors' prod-
ucts [2]. Enterprises are therefore seeking to dif-
ferentiate themselves from their competitors by
providing shorter lead times, introducing new
products more frequently and responding to cus-
tomer service and product requirements more rap-
idly. In order to achieve the necessary level of
operational #exibility, enterprises have adopted
a wide range of philosophies, methods and tech-
niques. Typically, these have included re-engineer-
ing business processes, focusing activities on core
competencies or products, changing design and
manufacturing methods and procedures, adopting
pull material #ow techniques and reorganising
work-groups into cross-functional teams.
This inexorable drive towards the creation of
a customer driven enterprise is having a profound
impact on the ability of the conventional MMIS to
meet the information requirements of the enter-
prise. The recent plethora of alternative MMIS
planning frameworks such as the Distributed
Material Requirements Planning (DMRP) model
proposed by Love [3], the Enterprise Resource
Planning (ERP) model [4,5], and the more recent
execution models such as the Manufacturing
Execution Systems (MES) discussed by Layden [6]
and the Customer-Orientated Manufacturing
Management System (COMMS) [7] are all evid-
ence of this fact.
With the complexity of the contemporary manu-
facturing enterprise the notion of a single `best
practicea model which can be applied across all
industries, products and business environments is
now more of an illusion than a reality. The severe
and increasing external pressures on manufacturers
from customers, competitors, evolving relations
with suppliers, changes in legislation and standards
etc.; together with internal pressures resulting from
advances in process technology, improvements in
MMISs etc. have been noted by a number of
authors, including Carrie et al. [8] and Platts et al.
[9]. Under these circumstances, it is vital that an
enterprise should be able to respond to these
pressures. An important element in successfully
responding is the ability of the manufacturing sys-
tem to support the manner in which the company
has chosen to compete in its markets i.e. its com-
petitive stance. A company's MMIS has a crucial
role in helping to ensure that the manufacturing
system can e!ectively support the organisation's
strategies. As a consequence, there is a growing
need to consider strategic as well as operational
factors when selecting information systems, with
the result that the selection problem is becoming
more complex.
Additional complexity in selection is also arising
from the conjunction of greater sophistication of
manufacturing systems and their associated in-
formation systems with increasing numbers of
MMIS suppliers. The kind of problem that can
arise in detecting operational mismatch between
the functionality o!ered by a system and the re-
quirements of a company is illustrated in the case
material which forms the latter part of the paper.
2. MMIS solutions
There are a number of options available to enter-
prises seeking to use computers to support their
production management. For convenience, these
can be broadly de"ned as proprietary, bespoke and
integrated. These categories are not mutually ex-
clusive.
2.1. Proprietary (turnkey)
Advocates of proprietary solutions maintain that
their use encourages `best practicea the assumption
being that certain practices have a broad industrial
basis and that best practice in the automotive parts
industry is just as applicable in the structural steel
industry. Proprietary solutions are potentially
cheaper to acquire than bespoke systems and are
more robust (less likely to fail due to errors in the
application's code). They can be introduced as
turnkey solutions and therefore have the potential
to deliver the bene"ts sooner than the bespoke or
integrated solution. Maintenance is said to be
cheaper for these systems since support is provided
by the system vendor whose costs can be spread
across their user-base.
320 R. Beach et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 64 (2000) 319}329