For this article, I selected a sector that has not been covered by authors and could hardly be found in books for Operations Management. I find this topics importance and significance to the global economy, and the Western, in particular, very high. Authors and advocates (e.g., Schroeder, 2004) dealt with the large enterprises, from both the manufacturing and service sectors; the smaller firms, known as Small Business, Minority Owned Business, SME (Small and Medium-size Enterprise), or SMB (Small and Medium-size Business), have been virtually ignored by them.
Material Requirements Planning (MRP)
Material requirements planning (MRP) is a computer-based inventory management system designed to assist production managers in scheduling and placing orders for dependent demand items. Dependent demand items are components of finished goods such as raw materials, component parts, and subassemblies for which the amount of inventory needed depends on the level of production of the final product. For example, in a plant that manufactured bicycles, dependent demand inventory items might include aluminum, tires, seats, and derailleurs.