MAKING MRP EASY
AT C.R. SMOLIN
BY MICHELE O'KEEFE
Dissatisfied with complicated material
requirements planning (MRP) systems that
were out of reach for most small manufacturers, Rocky Smolin took a dramatic
step. The president and owner of Beach Access Software (Del Mar, CA) locked
himself up in a Las Vegas, NV, resort, and schemed to free industry from the
shackles of high-cost material requirements planning. He emerged nearly a week
later—armed with a different kind of program.
"I had this idea, having implemented and written from scratch both mainframe-
and mini-based MRP systems, that if you could write a package that would run on
a single-user PC — that would be comprehensible by people without APICS
certification or a degree in the subject—that you could go after the half a
million small manufacturers in the country who need MRP but can't afford it,"
says Smolin. "It was something that everybody looked at and said, ‘That can’t be
done.’ So I figured, Well, I'll take a try at that; it’s going to be
interesting. I wanted to prove the point that you could demystify MRP. You see,
in my judgment, MRP is a real simple problem and everybody who runs their
business in a reasonably organized way does MRP. They just don't use the
vocabulary."
And so he made it easy — E-Z-MRP, that is.
E-Z-MRP is an MRP program designed for the discrete manufacturing industry. It
runs on any Windows based network and features a bill of materials module,
complete inventory control, production planning, and sales order, purchase order
and work order functions. Its key feature, however, is cost. Smolin designed the
system specifically for small to medium-size
businesses that can't afford the $20,000 to $100,000 that he says a traditional MRP system can run. E-Z-MRP has a
price of $3,495 for the full version, which handles unlimited parts, and $1,495
for the junior model, which holds 500 parts.
Smolin calls the system down-to-earth and straightforward, adjectives that also
fit the man and his philosophy on MRP systems.
"Everybody who runs their business in a reasonably organized way does MRP. They
just don't use the vocabulary."
"People all day long are trying to figure out what to make and what to buy, and
when to make it and when to buy it,” he says. “Those are the four questions
everyone’s always trying to answer in manufacturing. And the faster and easier
they can get those answers, the happier they're going to be."
Hence the birth of a system that uses jargon-free vocabulary, simple
instructions, and a tutorial and manual to replace on-site training. For
example, instead of a ‘time phased procurement schedule’ like that of most MRP
systems, E-Z-MRP has a Buy Report. And instead of requiring the entire company
to be trained in its use, the program is specifically designed to be run by a
single operator, although the system is network ready and has no limit on the
number of users.
"By the time MRP is implemented in most companies, people are so sick of it that
it takes almost 100% turnover before it's successful," Smolin says emphatically.
"When you want to put an MRP system in, the first thing you do is put the new
system on their work station and say, ‘Now we want you to do twice as much work
as you're doing. Do your regular work and then also do it in this system.
And then when we run the system parallel for a long enough time, well cut over
to it’. Well, you
know how that goes over in purchasing and every other department
that it happens in. They work and work and work, and they get nothing back for
that work except the system fails three or four times, and they have to do all
that work over again.
"So, by the time they're ready to cut over, everybody well and truly hates any
idea of MRP or automated systems. That's the biggest stumbling block for
manufacturing systems," continues the 44-year-old self-proclaimed computer
enthusiast "What I tried to do was eliminate that whole management problem.
E-Z-MRP can be run by one person on one machine. And everybody gets free output.
So, the first exposure they have to manufacturing systems is a benefit."
A 1970 graduate of Bradley University (Peoria, IL) with a B.S. in business
administration, Smolin also earned an MBA from San Diego State University (San
Diego, CA) in 1974. He then did what any self-respecting MBA would do—he went to
work as the manager of manufacturing information systems at a large
manufacturing firm. In 1978, he implemented the Manman MRP system from ASK
Computer Systems (Mountain View, CA) for a San Diego, CA, company that
manufactured underwater exploration devices. But his heart wasn't in the
corporate environment, and he and a fellow employee left to start their own
computer firm.
"We pretended to do productive things for America, while we were really goofing
off and playing with personal computers," he says with a laugh. After a short
time as San Diego Business Systems, Smolin began his own firm in 1981. His wife,
Marsha Sutton, now handles marketing communications as a partner in the firm. It
was as C.R. Smolin Inc. that they released the first version of E-Z-MRP in 1985.
Nearly 11 software versions later, Smolin's philosophy on MRP systems remains
the same: "First, you give them dessert, and then you make them eat their
vegetables." -MA