Improving Application Software by Integrating Master Scheduling with Material Requirements Planning in Supply Chain Management

Abstract

Supply chain management planning systems begin with supply network planning.  As a next step, in order to fulfill production requirements, each production facility makes decisions about master production schedules (MPS) for all products and, subsequently, material requirements planning (MRP) and capacity requirements planning for all subassemblies and components made in the production facility.  Currently, these decisions are made iteratively and by trial and error methods, resulting in inefficient and suboptimal decisions.  A linear programming model is proposed in this paper that can assist planners in making the decisions in an integrated model to avoid iterative loops.  The proposed model is illustrated with the formulation and solution of an example problem.