Manufacturing Resource Planning

Manufacturing Resource Planning is one of the most important activities in any factory. A factory may have machines, manpower, materials, tools, space and orders, but if these resources are not planned properly, production will still suffer.

Many factories face the same problems every day.

Material is not available when production needs it.
Machines are overloaded in one area and idle in another area.
Manpower is arranged at the last minute.
Production plans change frequently.
Customer delivery dates are missed even when people are working hard.

Most of these problems are not only production problems. They are planning problems.

This is where Manufacturing Resource Planning becomes important.

What is Manufacturing Resource Planning?

Manufacturing Resource Planning is the process of planning all the resources required to produce a product as per customer demand.

These resources include:

• Materials
• Manpower
• Machines
• Tools and fixtures
• Work centers
• Production capacity
• Storage space
• Time
• Cost

In simple words, Manufacturing Resource Planning answers one important question:

Do we have the right resources, in the right quantity, at the right time, to meet the production requirement?

It is not just about checking raw material availability. It is about checking whether the entire factory is ready to produce the required quantity within the required time.

Why Manufacturing Resource Planning is Important

A factory does not fail only because of lack of effort. Many times, factories fail because they start production without knowing the actual resource requirement.

For example, a production team may receive an order for 10,000 units. The team may immediately start planning shifts and material purchase. But if they do not check machine capacity, manpower requirement, supplier lead time and bottleneck operations, the plan may fail in execution.

Manufacturing Resource Planning helps the factory avoid such situations.

It helps to:

• Identify material shortages before production starts
• Calculate manpower requirement accurately
• Check machine capacity against demand
• Find bottleneck operations
• Plan production based on available capacity
• Reduce last-minute firefighting
• Improve delivery performance
• Reduce excess inventory and urgent purchases
• Improve coordination between production, planning, stores, purchase and maintenance

A good Manufacturing Resource Planning system does not simply create a production plan. It creates a practical production plan.

Difference Between Material Planning and Manufacturing Resource Planning

Many people confuse material planning with Manufacturing Resource Planning.

Material planning mainly focuses on what materials are required and when they are needed. It checks raw materials, bought-out parts, sub-assemblies and inventory.

Manufacturing Resource Planning goes beyond material.

It checks whether the factory has the complete capability to produce the required quantity.

For example:

Material planning may say:

“We need 5,000 shafts, 5,000 bearings and 5,000 housings.”

Manufacturing Resource Planning will ask:

“Do we also have enough machine hours, operators, tools, inspection capacity, storage space and production time to produce 5,000 finished assemblies?”

This is the real value of Manufacturing Resource Planning.

Key Inputs Required for Manufacturing Resource Planning

Manufacturing Resource Planning becomes accurate only when the input data is accurate. If the master data is wrong, the plan will also be wrong.

The main inputs required are:

1. Customer Demand

This is the quantity required by the customer or market.

Example:

A customer requires 5,000 units in one month.

This becomes the starting point for the planning process.

2. Bill of Materials

Bill of Materials, or BOM, shows what materials are required to make one finished product.

Example:

To make one finished product, we may need:

• 1 housing
• 1 shaft
• 2 bearings
• 4 screws
• 1 label

If the demand is 5,000 finished products, the system can calculate the total material requirement.

3. Routing

Routing shows the sequence of operations required to manufacture the product.

Example:

Cutting → Turning → Drilling → Assembly → Inspection → Packing

Without routing, we cannot know which work centers are required.

4. Cycle Time

Cycle time shows how much time is required to complete each operation.

Example:

Turning operation may take 2 minutes per piece.
Assembly may take 4 minutes per piece.
Inspection may take 1 minute per piece.