The MRP-II activities in the below diagram can be roughly broken up in to three parts :
- The front end: These activities consist of production planning and Master production schedule. These are basically the plans on which your whole system will be based.
- The engine: These consist of Materials requirement planning (MRP), Detailed capacity planning (CRP), and its result detailed material and capacity plans.
- The Back End: It consists of the shop floor control system and the vendor plans. This is where the action takes place, and all the detailed planned is brought into fruition. Monitoring is very important and any deviation has to report “up” to keep priorities current.
Principles and Characteristics
1. Integrated Planning Structure
Fully integrated: The MRP-II system is intended to be a fully integrated system that works from top down and has feedback from bottom up. Taken up with simulations it is a top management-planning tool. MRP-II requires all functions to interact through this system; any change in plan in any of the functions requires validation through MRP-II.
Coordinate between functions: MRP-II is fully integrated and cross functional in nature. MRP-II provides coordination between marketing and production. All the functions viz. Marketing, Finance and Production agree on a workable plan, which is the production plan. Marketing and production must work together on a daily or weekly basis to adjust the plan as changes occur. Generally this kind of changes is made through MPS; however care must be taken to respect the time fences when any changes are made to meet the customer demand. The nature of changes could be from changing the batch size to order cancellation or delivery dates.
3. Closed
Feedback loop: As seen from the diagram MRP-II provides feedback from within its various parts, making it closed loop. At every stage resource availability, through modules like, Rough cut capacity planning (RCCP), Capacity resource planning (CRP) is checked. Any deficit or inability to make the priority true calls for a change in plan or some alternate means to meet the demand.
4. What – if Simulation
Simulations: Another ability of MRP-II system is a what-if analysis. This tool can be used early in the planning stage to find out what resources are required beforehand. Forewarned being forearmed. This can be done by simulating the desired conditions and getting to know the effect of pre-supposed conditions down the line on say a critical resource like material, or a work center or for that matter on capacity
