Manufacturing > Material Requirements

Material Requirements

Material Requirements Overview

The Material Requirements module assists in planning purchasing and production requirements closely fitted to your shipping schedules and desired stocking levels. Material Requirements can insure that materials and subassemblies are available when needed down through all levels of the bills of material.

You can optionally enter forecasts of demand for finished goods as far into the future as you wish. Forecasts can be combined with actual sales orders to create overall requirement for finished goods and entry of new orders can automatically consume the forecast.

The MR-F, Generate Material Requirements, program takes these finished goods requirements, compares them with a projected running inventory, and suggests work orders and purchase orders according to parameters established through MR-D Enter MRP Parameters. Parameters such as lead time, reorder level, and reorder amount can be set up for each finished good, subassembly, or raw material.

As work orders are suggested, demand is created for materials and subassemblies within each work order's bill of material, generating additional suggested purchase orders and work orders. This process, commonly referred to as an MRP "explosion", continues down through all levels of the bills of material. Start dates and due dates are offset by the lead times required to meet the next higher level's start dates.

Besides suggesting new purchase orders and work orders, MRP will issue DELAY or EXPEDITE messages on existing orders that are either coming in too early or are arriving later than needed.

Suggested work orders and purchase orders can be converted into live orders automatically via MR-I Generate Work Orders and MR-J Generate Purchase Orders, eliminating manual entry.

Material Requirements works hand in hand with the Scheduling module, which translates the Material Requirements plan into actual work center schedules and compares the schedule with existing plant capacity.