A Little History
Hello. My name is Rocky Smolin. I am the president and founder of E-Z-MRP.
For many years I made a career out of both writing from scratch and managing the
implementation of proprietary Material Requirements Planning systems. These
systems were very expensive, took a long time to implement, and required
networks of terminals and computers as they integrated several functional areas
of a manufacturing firm. So it took a sizeable company to afford an MRP system.
Then, with the advent of the personal computer, I began to wonder why one
couldn’t develop an MRP system for small companies to run MRP on a single user
system. I had this idea that if the user interface were simplified, the data
inputs organized, and the reports that were generated were easy to run and read,
then anyone who could run a small manufacturing company could implement and run
MRP successfully, even if they had no background in either computers or
manufacturing systems.
Since many companies were investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in systems
(which often failed after a couple of years of frustration), the idea was
widely regarded as impractical and unworkable.
Nevertheless, in 1984 the first DOS-based, single-user version of
E-Z-MRP was released. Several hundred users
later, in six countries and five languages, the point had been made.
Any company, no matter how small, from start-up to between $10 million and $20
million, could successfully install and run E-Z-MRP.
MRP was no longer the province of large companies. An article that appeared in
the November 1993 issue of Managing Automation
magazine summed up nicely the philosophy behind E-Z-MRP
(click here to see a reprint of the
article).
In 2004, E-Z-MRP was re-released - this time
written in Microsoft’s Access Database Management System – a component of the
popular Microsoft Office Suite – with full network-ready, multi-user capability.
But its objective is still the same. Combining Microsoft’s proven technology
with E-Z-MRP’s proven approach to MRP success,
any company, no matter how small, can successfully run a professional,
full-featured MRP system.
Leaders in Automation
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