MRP (Material Requirements Planning)
Working backwards from demand and the bill of materials to decide what to make or buy, in what quantity, by when — accounting for stock, lead times and existing orders.
It is only as good as two inputs
Accurate bills of material and honest lead times. An MRP run on a BOM that is six revisions behind produces confident, wrong purchase orders — which is why ERP implementations usually spend more time cleaning master data than configuring software.
Why forecasts feed it
For made-to-stock items, demand is a forecast, so forecast accuracy becomes inventory. This is the clearest case where an AI forecast pays for itself inside an ERP rather than beside it.
Related terms
Where this applies
StancorERP
Need help applying this?
Stancor Technologies engineers answer specification questions directly. Contact us.