Material Requirements Planning (MRP) has been around since the late 60’s, and Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRPII) since the 70’s.

This approach has extended into all areas of business, and has become Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), taking into account all areas of a manufacturing business including Demand Requirement Planning, and Distribution Requirements Planning - both confusingly referred to as DRP.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems are also becoming more popular as businesses strive for competitive advantage by better management and use of customer data.

S&OP (Sales & Operations Planning) is also becoming a more widely used technique as manufacturing businesses try to forecast and match supply with demand to get an optimum balance of inventory and customer service.

Implementation success for MRP outside the Automotive Industry had been comparatively rare in the past. Increased understanding of precisely what it takes to implement a full-blown business system is now more widely understood, but at the same time the complexity due to hardware and software advances is increasing geometrically.

There are a surprising number of major complete implementation failures out there, and many partial successes, which have involved manufacturing companies of all sizes investing, in some cases, huge sums for little or no benefit.

What is invariably useful is a review to maximise the benefit from the existing business systems and structure, including computerised business systems. Simplification is usually possible, and sometimes the introduction of an additional module can be beneficial. The problems are nearly always people related, or companies trying to get the system to do something that it wasn’t really intended to do. There are few bad systems, but many poor implementations.

As a policy, no particular systems are recommend, but  a company can be helped through the selection process and implementation. The users must be involved in the choice if the commitment is to be there. Caliach software is used for basic ERP training.

Pharmaceuticals and Life Science products         

            12-month contract for the PLC CEO completing a structural and business systems review in partnership with Psycom International. Supplier base reducing from 5000 to 500 companies with objective to reduce to 50. Current multiple discrete interlinked systems reviewed, including costing and business streaming. Participation in the review of applications for tender for global business system.

Process Control & Automation Systems

Aerospace Engineering

Implementation of an MRPII manufacturing planning and scheduling package at a subcontract machining company, subsidiary of a major PLC, manufacturing aero engine parts. Implementation completed in 4 weeks.

Pharmaceuticals

3 month contract to cover senior Logistics role developed into the implementation of Sales & Operations planning system (Demand Solutions), including forecasting linked to the host MRPII system. This has resulted in continuing significant improvements in customer service levels