Our Enterprise-Wide Manufacturing Data System performs MRP. Why do I need a separate planning or scheduling solution?
As discussed below, MRP is NOT scheduling. In the best of worlds, MRP would work out all of the operational details to have the most accurate estimate of capacity, and an exact determination of the time at which raw materials must be available. Enterprise Wide Manufacturing Data Systems do not perform this detailed calculation, because planning or scheduling to maximize capacity in the presence of finite resources is mathematically a very complex problem. You need an optimized planning/scheduling solution to precisely know the capability of your business, and to have the power to determine how to improve that capability. High level MRP based planning models simply are not capable of doing so.
