A Dissertation Submitted in Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Award of
Master of Science in Procurement and Supply Chain Management of Mzumbe
University
The research designed to find out the influence of ICT application on pharmaceutical
inventory control and management in Tanzania. particularly the study aimed at
identify the effect of ICT - based information flow on effectiveness of the
pharmaceutical inventory control and management at the MSD, to determine the
effect of ICT- based Distribution Requirement Planning (DRP) on effectiveness of
the pharmaceutical inventory control and management at the MSD, identify the
effect of ICT- based Material Requirements Planning (MRP) on effectiveness of the
pharmaceutical inventory control and management at the MSD, and to identify the
effect of ICT- based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) on effectiveness of
the pharmaceutical inventory control and management at the MSD.
The study conducted out at Medical Stores Department (MSD) in Dar es Salaam,
adopted both approaches qualitative and quantitative under the case study design.
Simple random design and purposive design used to choose 65 samples while two
data collection method used such as questionnaires and interviews. The data
collected analyzed throughout descriptive statistics, correlation, Analysis for
variance, and regressions analysis.
Findings approved that Medical Stores Department (MSD) has got distinct inventory
control mechanism that has managed to reduce inventory cost and helpful to
inventory control activities in the management support performance. Moreover, there
was the setback or limitation facing the MSD organization such as high initial cost
on its adoption, untrustworthy experts to use the system, incompatible with other
systems, difficulty in its operation, non functioning of other parts, and unreliable
training on staff.
The researcher recommended that the influence of ICT on pharmaceutical inventory
control system has a great impact on the effect of inventory control and management
in Tanzania Pharmaceutical industry. It was recommended that MSD must increase
its budget to meet the operational cost and attract more experienced and well skilled
experts in ICT system on inventory control.