Manufacturing Resource Planning for Life Sciences

Manufacturing resource planning is both an enterprise-wide management concept and a software application whose purpose is to optimize the relationship between raw materials, personnel and equipment to achieve the greatest possible operational efficiency and productivity.

Manufacturing resource planning systems are based on the then-groundbreaking material requirements planning (MRP or MRP I) software that emerged and became widespread in the 1970s for inventory control, purchasing, and materials management. These early enterprise software systems used relatively static data points, such as historic demand, to determine current and future inventory levels and procurement planning. Manufacturing resource planning systems, on the other hand, have evolved to incorporate more complex and dynamic metrics, including financial data, machine and equipment capacity, and staffing levels to enable production managers to more accurately plan inventory and schedule production. Furthermore, they often deliver simulation capabilities that allow operators to see the downstream effect of different actions.