Purchasing and material requirements planning

Abstract

An indispensable part of an ERP system, Material Requirements Planning, also plays an important role in APS, because it generates replenishment orders (production orders) for uncritical components and parts (operations) in a multi-stage production environment (Sect. 11.1 and 11.2) and provides access to a transactional ERP system and thus can initiate the execution of orders. The typical tasks of purchasing are to analyze procurement markets, to negotiate the terms of trade with potential suppliers and finally to select suppliers and to place replenishment orders. Here, we are interested in the way APS can support the selection of suppliers and the decisions on order sizes, taking into account the specific cost functions of suppliers, which often allow for quantity discounts (Sect. 11.3). This may apply to input materials for production, indirect materials and articles of merchandise. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.