Inventory planning for manufacturing
Recent developments in inventory planning are aimed at
solving some of the problems encountered by the use of the more traditional
approaches to stock replenishment. They are based on the concept of materials requirements
planning MRP which is a computerized system for forecasting materials
requirements based on a company’s master production schedule and bill of
material for each product. This has subsequently been developed in to
manufacturing resource planning MRP|| which is a broader based system used to
calculate the time phased requirements for components and materials with
respect to production schedules taking in to account replenishment lead times
etc. This approach enables inventory levels to be significantly reduced and
service levels in terms of shorter production lead times to be improved.
MRP systems are now quite well established as are other
related techniques such as just in time JIT or Kanban systems. The obvious
advantages of these systems to manufacturing have led to the further
development of associated techniques for distribution – distribution
requirements planning DRP. DRP systems are designed to take forecast demand and
reflect this through the distribution system on a time phased requirements
basis. Basis DRP thus acts by pulling the product through the distribution
system once demand has been identified. It is particularly useful for multi
echelon distribution structures to counter the problems of requirements
occurring as large chunks of demand the Forrester effect described in Chapter
12.
The most recent systems adopt an even broader planning
approach. These are time phased and enable planning across a whole business and
even across complete supply chain. They are known respectively as enterprise
resource planning ERP and supply chain planning SCP. These systems are also
discussed in Chapters 11 and 31.
The concept of time compression is an important approach in
the planning of manufacturing inventory requirements or perhaps it should be termed
as the planned reduction in manufacturing and WIP inventory. The opportunities
for such reductions have been illustrated in the above discussion on analyzing
time and inventory where the use of supply chain mapping enables the
identification of feasible time and inventory savings. Time compression
techniques provide the means for achieving these improvements A typical
approach includes:
·
The need to take a complete supply chain
perspective when planning;
·
The need to undertake appropriate analysis;
·
The identification of unnecessary inventory and
unnecessary steps in key processes;
·
Working towards customer service requirements as
well as cost minimization when planning for production;
·
Designing products to be compatible with supply
chain requirements;
·
Designing production processes to be compatible
with supply chain requirements.
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