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As described in the text book, the MRP Process is meant to find out how many materials is needed in a given time while keeping the inventory level the lowest. The MRP process was firstly built by Joseph Orlicky in 1964 on the basis of the Toyota Production System (TPS), which was called the origin of the Lean Manufacturing by Jim Womack in the late 1980s.
In the 1930s, Kiichiro Toyoda found out a way to solve the problems aroused from Ford’s assembly line, which was throughput time and inventory was increased considerably. It was also hard to produce customized products while the market needs turned to a variety of products at that time. Instead of focusing on the utilization of machines in each step, the TPS emphasized on the product flow through the production process. Toyoda’s idea was to produce product with high variety and high quality with rapid throughput time and low cost. He later summarized five methods to address this issue; predict the actual volume needed for machines, adapt self-monitoring machines for quality assurance, arrange the machines in process sequence, make sure that each process report the needs for materials to the previous one, and introduce quick setups so that machines can make small volumes of many part numbers [1].
The Lean Thinking now is not only restricted to manufacturing process but applied in the broad management world. The fundamental ideal of Lean is all about bringing more customer value while decreasing its cost. While there are thousands of lean methods and tools out there, the most important task to initiate a lean transformation is to review the Purpose, Process and People within the business. [2]
Reference
[1] A Brief History of Lean
[2] What is Lean