An MRP system for surgical linen management at a large hospital

Materials Requirements Planning (MRP) has been used extensively in manufacturing and other industries to improve on-time delivery and to reduce costs. In this paper, we illustrate how an MRP-type system was developed to monitor surgical linen at a large teaching hospital. We also describe a bar-code scanning 'tag and recapture' study to estimate total inventory. The hospital implemented several changes based upon our recommendations that resulted in time savings and a smoother flow of materials throughout the surgical linen supply chain.