Demand-driven Versus Traditional Materials Requirement Planning
P.J. Jakovljevic - August 8, 2005

The Realities of Manufacturing Today

Nowadays, manufacturers are increasingly subject to massive pressures to drive down costs and increase efficiency. However, these pressures often invalidate the traditional materials requirements planning (MRP) batch-based manufacturing planning and product costing approaches. Moreover, companies struggling to serve their customers using purely traditional MRP methodology are often unable to meet the demands for agility and responsiveness that consumers at the end of the supply chain are requesting. To make things worse, with product life cycles decreasing, it means that manufacturing and distribution are increasing in complexity. For the manufacturer, this translates into a need to better manage customer demands and expectations, and to respond accordingly...