The MRP-JIT Paradigm
Part 3 of 4 

The swashbuckling layoff craze we are witnessing is just weakening our ability to compete. From Fortune, "This continuous downsizing—it's corporate anorexia. You can get thin, but it's no way to get healthy."⁶

Managing a corporation, especially a manufacturer, is a very complex undertaking. This means that there are no easy answers, no meat-ax available that will serve the purpose. The only way to get lean and mean is to proceed professionally and methodically.

MRP doesn't pay attention to who puts out the bills of material. It could be a traditional design engineering group, or a result of concurrent engineering. MRP only requires that the process be done properly.

When MRP plans a shop order, it doesn't care if the work center is self-directed, if it is a cellular, continuous flow layout, or if it is a traditional job shop. Because of MRFs process approach, we in manufacturing can be as flexible as we choose, without upsetting our basic planning and control systems, either from the theoretical standpoint, or regarding software.

To really achieve lean and mean restructuring, the whole enterprise needs to learn from us how to improve all our other processes. Some people are calling this reengineering, and it is best done in two steps.

Every company has a finite number of processes. For example, a most important process in a manufacturing enterprise is the order fulfillment cycle. In a make-, assemble-, or configure-to-order setting, this cycle starts when the customer first identifies a need for your product, perhaps through their MRP system. The cycle proceeds through order entry, master scheduling, and production and inventory planning. The cycle continues with produc­tion, packing and shipping. The cycle is completed when the customer is using your product with satisfaction, and the invoice has been sent and paid. This process includes important contributions from the whole supply chain, including your customer, your suppliers, transportation companies, and communication.

In a make-to-stock situation, the cycle starts with a replen­ishment order from the field, or a usable sales forecast, and ends when your product is available, on the shelf, at the required distribution points. Customer order fulfillment represents a second process.

The reengineering method calls for analysis of every step in the process. A simple industrial engineering flow chart is helpful. Every step is analyzed to see if it really needs tobedone. If so, can the process be simplified? Delaysand inspections are two prime candidates for elimination. Empowered, well trained, multifunctional workers can be called on to do several tasks that traditionally are ad­dressed serially in several departments. For example, empower the order entry clerk to approve credit for the majority of current customers who are in good standing. Only send the problems to the credit department.

Another reengineering tool is to examine batching of docu­ments to be sent to the next station, where they languish in the in-basket. This is analogous to move and queue time, that we have been hammering down for years in manufac­turing. Collocation is another tool. Why not have the buyers and accounts payable located adjacent to one an­other?

This is one way to eliminate batching and in-baskets.

Eliminating receiving inspection, making delivery directly to the line, and using bar coded labels to speed up the receiving transaction is a common example, which can eliminate the traditional dock-to-stock delay, and the paper receiving report.

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is eliminating the tra­ditional purchase order by sending releases directly from the buyer's MRP system to the seller's.

Another, more radical advance, is to eliminate the three-way match in accounts payable. This current, strong tradi­tion is to have the accounts payable clerk check the supplier's invoice against the purchase order for price, and against
the receiving report for quantity and perhaps quality. If all three are in agreement the clerk authorizes payment. In a Just-in-Time setting with frequent deliveries, from single sources, with no noticeable quality problems, the three way-match is being eliminated, in favor of "back flushing" vendor payments. Under this process, you pay for what you consume. Let's say you are making little red wagons. You
have only one supplier of wheels, who delivers flawless quality, frequently, directly to the line. If you make 1,000little red wagons in a week, you must have used 4,000wheels. Your MRP system back flushes this fact into the accounts payable system, where payment is completed by EDI, from your bank to your supplier's bank untouched by human hand. This actually is being done in some US factories today, and certainly will increase in popularity in the coming years.

To be Continued