The process within TB Figure 15.3, Bubble 3.0 might be described as follows: After the
master production schedule is determined, an important step in completing the
production in a timely manner is identifying, ordering, and receiving materials.
Materials requirements planning is a process that uses bills of material, raw material
and WIP inventory status data, open order data, and the master production schedule to
calculate a time-phased order requirements schedule for materials and subassemblies.
The schedule shows the time period when a manufacturing order or purchase order
should be released so that the subassemblies and raw materials will be available when
needed. The process involves working backward from the date production is to begin to
determine the timing for manufacturing subassemblies and then moving back further to
determine the date that orders for materials must be issued into the purchasing process.
In an enterprise system, this process is performed automatically, using a variety of data
from the enterprise database including:
The process begins by exploding the bill of materials to determine the total of each