The Problem

Manufacturing is not a piece of cake. No matter what anyone tells you. It is shot through with problem after problem.

• First, you have to get the Marketing people to sit still and stop changing the sales forecast every two days.

• Then there are those unexpected “big orders” that your persistent sales force insists on booking (usually near the end of the quarter).

• Let’s not forget those heart-rending cancellations that threaten to leave you with all sorts of unneeded inventory.

• And of course, Customer Service and Engineering are always trying to raid your raw materials inventory for spares they forgot to forecast.

Meanwhile, the bad news.

• Purchasing says that lead times for some critical components have just dramatically increased.

• Inventory reports that you don’t have quite as many of some items as you thought, and on others you’re well overstocked.

• On the other hand, most of your open purchase orders are being delivered late and over cost.

No matter what unprintable form your analysis of this situation may take, your problems can be reduced to four basic questions (THE BIG FOUR):

1. What do I have to make?
2. When do I have to make it?
3. What do I have to buy?
4. When do I have to buy it?

You can answer these questions yourself if you have one product with a few components and only a few orders. However, it doesn’t take very many orders, components, or products before you lose control trying to manage your business manually.

The ideal solution to these problems is an integrated, automated manufacturing system that includes a Material Requirements Planning (MRP) module. The ideal MRP system answers THE BIG FOUR by:

• First looking at the total demand for end items.
• Next adding in all components and subassemblies needed to build the end items.
• Then subtracting any items already in finished goods, raw materials, work in process, and open purchase orders.
• Finally, providing answers to THE BIG FOUR by printing beautiful, time-sequenced reports that show all the “make” and “buy” information you need.

The Further Problem

Unfortunately, implementation of nearly all manufacturing systems requires a number of prerequisites that can add up to a massive commitment on your part in time, money, and additional people.

To answer THE BIG FOUR, most MRP systems need a lot of additional software. These sub-systems can often include:

• Bill of materials processor
• On-line raw materials inventory
• Work-in-process
• Sales order entry
• Finished goods inventory
• Purchasing
• Shop floor control
• Forecasting

…and perhaps several auxiliary subsystems, including:

• Receiving
• Kitting
• Accounting
• Labor routing
• Shipping
• Labor distribution

The Right Solution

Because the benefits of an MRP system are so great, MRP has become a requirement rather than just an attractive option for nearly every manufacturing concern. So a computerized MRP system – of one kind or another – is probably essential for a company like yours.

Meet E-Z-MRP™

E-Z-MRP™ is an advanced MRP system that offers the benefits of a large-scale MRP system at a small fraction of the investment in time, money, hardware, software, and people. Implementation of E-Z-MRP™ is as simple as most other systems are difficult.

• E-Z-MRP™ can be implemented for a total hardware and software cost of well under $5,000.
• E-Z-MRP™ is so easy to operate that no additional hiring of specially trained staff is needed.
• E-Z-MRP™ reduces implementation time from 18 months to as little as 18 days through its simple operation
• The hardware requirements for E-Z-MRP™ probably already exist in your company. Only a copy of Microsoft’s Access 2000 or Access XP is required to run E-Z-MRP™.
• The cost of E-Z-MRP™ is a fraction of other available packages that offer similar capabilities.

E-Z-MRP™’s Unique Supply Side/Demand Side Approach

At first glance, all MRP systems require what appears to be a bewildering array of data from several different functional areas of the company –Document Control, Production Control, Sales and Marketing, Purchasing, Inventory, etc. But E-Z-MRP™’s novel approach organizes all of this data into two broad groups: Supplies and Demands.

SUPPLIES:

Supplies consist of:

• INVENTORIES
• PURCHASE ORDERS
• WORK–IN–PROCESS
• PLANNED WORK ORDERS

DEMANDS:

Demands are:

• SALES ORDERS
• FORECASTS
… for end items, spares, and warranty items
• SAFETY STOCK

All of this supply and demand information must be entered into your system – usually a very tedious process. However, E-Z-MRP™ eases you through this task with a method that is fast, powerful, simple, and highly organized.

E-Z-MRP™ then takes this information and summarizes it into two comprehensive reports: the Supply Side and Demand Side reports.

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