Advantages and Disadvantages of Utilizing Materials Requirements Planning (MRP) Systems

Within manufacturing, developing a plan for your resources is absolutely vital for operation. Without proper resource planning for your manufacturing operation, you will have a challenging time managing various areas within your supply chain such as inventory, production, and output.

Utilization of a materials requirements planning (MRP) can efficiently manage materials within production, making it much easier for project managers to order and organize materials that are in need of being assembled. Through MRP, the need for materials planning is eliminated and the system is able to easily carry out an efficient strategy. MRP has become a must for manufacturing facilities that are in need of keeping up with a consistently growing demand. Before implementing an MRP system, it is important to understand the advantages and disadvantages of the utilizing the software. Therefore, here are the advantages and disadvantages of utilizing MRP systems.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Utilizing Material Requirements Planning (MRP) Systems 

The advantages of materials requirements planning (MRP) include the following:

• Aids with maintaining minimum inventory levels
• If you have minimum inventory levels, materials planning will also reduce associated costs
• Material tracking becomes much easier and ensures that economic order quantity is achieved for all lot orders
• Material planning smooths out capacity utilization and allocates correct time to products as per demand forecast

The disadvantages of materials requirements planning (MRP) include the following:

• Material planning is entirely dependent on inputs it receives from other system departments. If input information is not correct than output for material planning will also be incorrect
• Material planning requires maintenance of robust database with all information pertaining inventory records, production schedule, etc, without which output again would be incorrect
• Material planning system requires proper training for end users, as to get maximum out of the system
• Material resource planning system requires substantial investment out of time and capital

A software that can aid with materials requirements planning (MRP) is PlanetTogether’s Advanced Planning and Scheduling Software (APS). PlanetTogether’s Advanced Planning and Scheduling Software (APS) can aid with manufacturing operations around the globe that are in need of efficiency increase. PlanetTogether’s Advanced Planning and Scheduling Software (APS) allows manufacturers to easily view their production process as a whole and manipulate areas that are in need of aid. APS software can be implemented into operations around the globe.

Advanced Planning and Scheduling Software

Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) software has become a must for modern-day manufacturing operations due to customer demand for increased product mix and fast delivery combined with downward cost pressures. APS can be quickly integrated with a ERP/MRP software to fill gaps where these system lack planning and scheduling flexibility and accuracy. Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) helps planners save time while providing greater agility in updating ever-changing priorities, production schedules, and inventory plans.

• Create optimized schedules balancing production efficiency and delivery performance
• Maximize output on bottleneck resources to increase revenue
• Synchronize supply with demand to reduce inventories
• Provide company-wide visibility to capacity
• Enable scenario data-driven decision making

Implementation of Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) software will take your manufacturing operations to the next level of production efficiency, taking advantage of the operational data you already have in your ERP.