Operations Management: Sustainability and Supply Chain Management, Twelfth Edition

MRP Structure

Although most MRP systems are computerized, the MRP procedure is straightforward, and we can illustrate a small one by hand. A master production schedule, a bill of material, inventory and purchase records, and lead times for each item are the ingredients of a material requirements planning system (see Figure 14.4).

Once these ingredients are available and accurate, the next step is to construct a gross material requirements plan. The gross material requirements plan is a schedule, as shown in Example 2. It combines a master production schedule (that requires one unit of A in week 8) and the time-phased schedule (Figure 14.3). It shows when an item must be ordered from suppliers if there is no inventory on hand or when the production ...