Manufacturing resource planning

Manufacturing resource planning (MRP II) is defined as a method for the effective planning of all resources of a manufacturing company. Ideally, it addresses operational planning in units, financial planning, and has a simulation capability to answer "what-if" questions and extension of closed-loop MRP.

This is not exclusively a software function, but the management of people skills, requiring a dedication to database accuracy, and sufficient computer resources. It is a total company management concept for using human and company resources more productively.

MRP II is not a proprietary software systems and can thus take many forms. It is almost impossible to visualize an MRP II system that does not use a computer, but an MRP II system can be based on either purchased–licensed or in-house software.

Almost every MRP II system is modular in construction. Characteristic basic modules in an MRP II system are:

together with auxiliary systems such as:

and related systems such as:

The MRP II system integrates these modules together so that they use common data and freely exchange information, in a model of how a manufacturing enterprise should and can operate. The MRP II approach is therefore very different from the "point solution" approach, where individual systems are deployed to help a company plan, control or manage a specific activity. MRP II is by definition fully integrated or at least fully interfaced.

Material requirements planning (MRP) and manufacturing resource planning (MRPII) are predecessors of enterprise resource planning (ERP), a business information integration system. The development of these manufacturing coordination and integration methods and tools made today's ERP systems possible. Both MRP and MRPII are still widely used, independently and as modules of more comprehensive ERP systems, but the original vision of integrated information systems as we know them today began with the development of MRP and MRPII in manufacturing.

MRP (and MRPII) evolved from the earliest commercial database management package developed by Gene Thomas at IBM in the 1960s. The original structure was called BOMP (bill-of-materials processor), which evolved in the next generation into a more generalized tool called DBOMP (Database Organization and Maintenance Program). These were run on mainframes, such as IBM/360.

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