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The happy marriage of push and pull.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The current management emphasis on lean manufacturing recognizes that pull production is the way to achieve value creation with Less waste. But what to do, then, with the MRP system? Since material requirements planning relies on a push concept of building Products to meet anticipated needs, it would seem to be the antithesis of lean. Not so. Because most facilities have mixed-mode Manufacturing, push and pull processes can co-exist in harmony, each meeting the needs of particular lines.

Push or pull: That is the question. In today's complex manufacturing sector, we are not only challenged to do more with less, but we are also bombarded with new philosophies and concepts that often push (or pull) us in different directions.

A case in point is the ongoing battle between MRP and lean. MRP systems are frequently condemned as one of the main reasons so many manufacturing companies are locked into push systems, whereas lean concepts imply that pull systems are the ideal. Truth be told, one shouldn't simply throw out one for the other--the two can co-exist harmoniously and beneficially if they are given a better definition of roles.

Jargon junction

First introduced as a philosophy in the 1970s, material requirements planning is a process used to calculate the amount of raw materials necessary to manufacture a specified number of products. Over the past 20 years, MRP has evolved into a critical tool in enterprise resource planning systems, which are used to plan and control all the resources a company requires to fill customer orders.

Today's MRP systems are typically highly technical, computerized methods for planning the use of a company's resources, including scheduling raw materials, vendors, production equipment, and processes.

In contrast, lean manufacturing--a production method that calls for building products with as few steps and as little work-in-process inventory as possible--relies on work centers or manufacturing cells that are capable of building multiple products, giving the company the flexibility to produce the exact mix and quantity of products required.

According to the Lean Institute, the fundamental objective of lean thinking is to provide perfect value to the customer through a perfect value creation process that has zero waste. To accomplish this, lean thinking changes the focus of management from optimizing separate technologies and assets...

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