A compatible future for Lean and MRP?

There seems to be an element of distaste from Lean Supply Chain people about MRP. Not being a Supply Chain expert it is really not for me to comment. But I did ask Carol Ptak and Chad Smith to address a few of those issues in the Business901 podcast, and in the podcast, Is Orlicky’s MRP relevant today? Think DDMRP. Below is an excerpt from the podcast on one of those questions:

First of all, we owe Lean a huge debt of gratitude to getting some critical elements in front of industry. One thing that I think is very important is the Lean crowd, I think, unfairly gets branded as anti-technology. I think that that’s unfair because, up until now, technology hasn’t worked for Lean very well. If you look at the basic rules of MRP and how it works, it doesn’t work well for Lean. If you look at the Toyota Production System, even the critical points in the Toyota Production System about technology, I think, Liker’s book, I think it’s point eight.

It says, “Use only thoroughly tested and proven technological methods for your people and processes.” Well, up until now, there haven’t been thoroughly tested or proven technological processes.

So it’s forced the Lean community, it’s forced the TOC community back into manual systems. And those manual systems are breaking down. They’re too intensive. And for larger corporations, you really lose a lot of visibility across an enterprise. In fact, for larger companies, Joe, the idea of enterprise Lean really doesn’t exist. And why? It’s because we have limitations with technology.

Now, what Carol and I are doing here is we’re saying, look. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water. Let’s not just throw out the promise of technology and jump all the way back to manual re-order point systems. Let’s figure out how we have to change the formal planning logic to create new rules that then foster new tools that both the formal planning crowd and the Lean crowd can embrace.

And so far, we’ve heard really good feedback from both sides of the fence here that says, “Yeah, this seems to solve the things that we need to see” and from the Lean side, it also seems to be right in line and actually even facilitate their objectives.

Below is a transcription of the entire conversation:

Introduction to Demand Driven MRP –

Carol Ptak and Chad Smith were asked to co-author the new Orlicky’s Material Requirements Planning 3/E. Carol and Chad were on previous podcasts with me, In a Supply Chain, Where is more important than How Much! and Can MRP be a Demand – Driven Tool?. They can be found at the Demand Driven Institute.

This past week I had a good time applying a few of the DDMRP concepts to sales and marketing. Exercises like this helps me stretch my thoughts a little.

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