Improvement of Material Flow in the Production and Supply Chain of ...

CHAPTER 2
RESEARCH THEORY AND METHODOLOGY
2.1 Research framework
According to Luo, the research of logistics begins from last century. There is a relative
entire system till present. The focus of the research is the managing and control of the
whole logistics and supply chain. The aim of supply chain management is decrease the
cost of logistics and inventory, at the same time, increase the efficiency of all kinds of
sources and information in order to satisfy the requirements of market (Luo, 2006).
There are many modes to describe the production material flow. Such as MRP (Material
Requirements Planning), JIT (Just In Time), Lean Production, AM (Agile
Manufacturing), TOC (Theory of Constraint), supply chain management and so on. It is
well-known that many challenges will appear when the production volume increased
sharply. In this case, all of the modes mentioned above can be use to analyze and
optimize manufacturing. But for the enterprises, they usually select one or two of the
method to analyze their own situation and then adopt the corresponding method to
solve problems and enhance productivities. In another word, each of the mode is
advantage at certain filed instead of outstanding all-around.
“MRP (Material Requirements Planning) is a set of algorithms designed to establish
material requirements based upon known sales orders (or forecast), bills of materials
and material supplier lead times.”(OSIRS, viewed 2008) The limitation with MRP
about the principle is that the algorithms are normally carried out in sequence. In a word,
the materials requirements are calculated advance, and then plan the capacity. In
practice, this would lead to a situation where capacity constraints mean that materials
could be delivered later or may be required earlier; hence re-planning of materials is
required. In this case, there would be more problems, for example the lead-time is long.
And all of this could impact the capacity planning and so the process goes on. (OSIRS,
viewed 2008) Except that, MRP plays a role in part of the production line and this is a
limitation of MRP.
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