MRP vs. MRP II

Our day to day is in the factories of our customers. One of the issues that always comes to light is the materials planning: how much and when to stock up? How to identify the capacity problems of the production plan?

For that reason today we dedicate our post to explain what is MRP (Material Requirement Planning) and MRP II (Manufacturing Resource Planning).

Let’s start by the beginning:

 

What is MRP?

The MRP (Material Requirement Planning), or material needs planner, is a system for planning production, scheduling and controlling inventories. Towards the end of the 1950’s, MRP systems began to be used in the productive sectors. Its reason for being was to manage the manufacturing processes.

The MRP answers the questions of how much and when to stock up on materials. This system works with two basic parameters: times and capacities. Calculate the quantities of finished product to be manufactured, the necessary components and the raw materials to be purchased in order to satisfy the demand, thus obtaining the production plan specifying the dates and contents to be manufactured; the procurement plan for purchases to be made to suppliers and exception reports.

But the MRP calculations began to be insufficient with the flourishing of industry and technology, and it became necessary to calculate if sufficient resources were available to carry out the planned tasks, leaving the novel system somewhat obsolete.

The MRP continued to evolve and led to the MRPII, which offers an architecture of planning, simulation, execution and control processes to achieve production objectives, adjusting capacities, labor, inventories, costs and deadlines. production.

 

What is MRP II?

The main objective of the MRP II (Manufacturing Resource Planning) system is to identify the capacity problems of the production master plan, and to facilitate the evaluation and execution of the appropriate modifications in the planner, to control, detect and correct the incidences generated in a way agile and fast.

Thus, it provides consistent data to all members in the manufacturing process as the product moves through the production line.

The MRPII is defined by its different approaches (Production Planning, Master Production Programming, Material Requirements Planning, Production Activity Control) in different time horizons.

In short, we can say that the MRP II is a system of planning and control of the production totally integrated of all resources for the manufacture of the company (production, marketing, finance and engineering) based on a computer support that answers the question “What would happen if..?”.

 

MRP vs MRP II. Conclusion.

The MRP II offers additional features with respect to the MRP:

  • Capacity planning
  • Planning levels defined
  • Structured and documented Master Plan Policy
  • Simulation possibilities
  • Feedback in closed loop

The MRP II is an extension of the MRP, so, in addition to defining what, how much and when it should be produced, it also defines what resources, in what quantity, and at what moment they will be necessary to carry out said calculated production.

Each approach has its own version to identify and adjust the imbalances, the dilemma is that it does so thinking of an infinite capacity and static waiting times.

How to resolve this conflict? What technological solution is there to plan at finite capacity and that is adapted to the demand? The answer in our next post.

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