Why Excel-Based MRP?
Production-Scheduling.com assists manufacturers to develop their own finite scheduling systems in Excel, and will also custom develop scheduling systems for them. Most of these systems are interfaced to a host MRP/ERP system, which acts as a repository for demand and inventory data, and will perform Material Requirements Planning (MRP1) calculations.
However, many clients have approached us to develop MRP within Excel, because either:
- they do not have an MRP system, or
- having generated scheduled dates within Excel, they are unable to upload them to their MRP system, or
Features
The Excel-Based MRP system has the following features:
- VBA free, no macros, it is all formulas and PivotTables, and nothing is hidden
- demand is generated by a make-to-inventory Finite Schedule, but may also be from another source
- a single level Bill of Material structure
- inventory of raw material and components is allocated to the earliest scheduled product first, and will be dynamically re-allocated as the schedule changes
- a Purchase Action Report identifies purchase orders which must be placed or chased to meet the schedule
- Inventory Rationing
The last 3 sheets of the system addresses a question that many manufacturers have:
“What products should I make with the inventory I have on hand right now?”
The system takes into account raw materials that are used by more than one product, and rations the inventory across the products so as to even out the product inventory cover as much as possible.