Question 6: A variation of MRP is regenerative MRP systems. From the Internet, research this system. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this type of MRP system?
Materials Resource Planning (MRP) “is a computerized information system developed specifically to help manufacturers manage dependent demand inventory and schedule replenishment orders (Krajewski & Malhotra, 2022).
Regenerative MRP was not an easy topic to research, so in refining my parameters, I decided to use one of the software companies who provide COTS packages, which in this case was SAP. SAP’s glossary defines regenerative MRP as “a process that uses the existing production plan to generate new plans based on changes in demand, supply, and other factors”, and “its goal is to ensure the production plan is always up-to-date and accurate” (SAP, 2022).
Some of the advantages and disadvantages of this system are (Linked-In, 2024):
Advantages:
Can provide a comprehensive and accurate picture of material needs and availability.
Identify any potential problems/opportunities.
Disadvantages:
Time consuming.
Resource intensive.
Disruptive to schedules and priorities.
Requires a lot of coordination and communication up/down stream.
In understanding this more completely, it would appear this method could provide the most accurate data possible, but would take more time and resources than what is normally done with MRP; so a cost-benefit analysis would be really useful here in determining whether or not using regenerative MRP was of that much value to an organization or not. I do wonder as well how much automation could be introduced here,
and what that cost would end up being too.
