The Shop Floor
is an integral part of any manufacturing system. It is here that the needs of
the customer and the efforts of a manufacturing firm are inter-linked by
combining raw materials and labor to make the desired finished product.
Consequently, it is important that there should exist an effective means for
controlling the activities of the shop floor in order to achieve the greatest
efficiency and predictability of the manufacturing process.
Different
manufacturing systems exist worldwide. In the USA Manufacturing Resource
Planning (MRP II) is in use by close to 80% of the manufacturing industry [rough estimate by Scott Ball - LFM].
Initially introduced in the 1960s, MRP II has undergone several revisions
fuelled by increased computing capabilities and an effort to integrate the
activities of the different sections of the manufacturing firm into one unit.
The latest version of MRP is the Advanced Planning System (APS).
This study tries
to establish the suitability of MRP II as a tool for Shop Floor control.
In general, MRP II is an excellent
planning tool especially with regards to optimizing the use of the various
manufacturing resources. However at the shop floor level, it experiences certain
limitations that constrain its ability to act as an effective tool for
control. The study also attempts to
identify what these limitations are and to highlight different solutions that
have been proposed or implemented by various companies and researchers to bring
MRP II as close as possible to the ideal control system.
The scope of the
paper is limited only to discussing how MRP II relates to shop floor control in
the context of manufacturing. Some technical details of relevance are defined
in the paper. In addition, definitions and explanations of the different MRP II
concepts that are discussed are given. The paper is divided into two parts. The
first part constituting chapters 2, 3
and 4 provides a review of the literature available on the topics of MRP II and
Shop Floor Control. Chapter 2 begins by
giving a description of MRP II. In addition to explaining what it is and how it
works, it mentions how the shop floor control module is related to the entire
MRP II framework. It also points out problems that are typically associated
with MRP II and then proceed to highlight the types of solutions that industry
has implemented in the form of MRP II hybrid systems. Chapter 3 discusses what
shop floor control (SFC) is and what it entails. It then discusses what the
characteristics of the ideal shop floor control design would be. It augments
this with a discussion on the difference between push and pull systems with
respect to shop floor control. Chapter 4 relates the contents of the previous
two chapters by discussing how MRP II establishes shop floor control. It
highlights the difficulties faced in doing this by identifying the limitations
and constraints of the system using the Manufacturing System Design
Decomposition developed by Professor Cochran. It then discusses from a
technical viewpoint the various MRP hybrid systems that have arisen to solve
these shortcomings as introduced in chapter 2.
The second part of the paper is chapter 5 which provides a case study of
a manufacturing firm that uses MRP II in its production process. Through the
case study, the paper tries to connect the various characteristics highlighted
in the literature review with a real life example. Chapter six gives the
conclusions of the study.