Along the years, Information Technology (IT) is growing its support role to production activities. At first, the activities performed by IT were very simple, but nowadays, it supports almost all the production activities, including processes and products development. Production Planning and Control is a specific area where IT can effectively bring significant impacts, opening horizons for new operating strategies and even business strategies. Examples of how IT can help the operational environment are the use of MRP, MRP II and ERP systems. On the other hand, it still remains the doubts about the results obtained with the IT investments. In order to evaluate IT impacts on the organization operations, it is necessary an approach comparing the results of the IT applications related to the objectives, goals and requirements of production and of the entire organization, in other words, considering the effectiveness of IT applications. This paper reports a case study related to the selection of a new IT application in production planning in an industry. This research was developed in a large manufacturing company and it is discussed IT impacts in the operations management and in the organization business. AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) was the tool used for the decision-making process.
Information Technology; information systems; production planning and control; effectiveness
