# MRP Software > Net demand against stock, work in progress and inbound purchases to produce a buy list and a make list you can actually act on. **URL:** https://cubeerp.co.uk/software/mrp-software Material requirements planning is arithmetic that nobody can do reliably by hand once there is more than one level in the bill of materials. Take demand from sales orders, forecasts and minimum stock levels; explode it through the BOM; net it against free stock, work in progress and confirmed inbound deliveries; offset by lead time; and you have a list of what to buy and what to make, and when. CubeERP does that on demand or on a schedule, and shows its working - every suggestion can be traced back to the order or the rule that caused it, which is the difference between an MRP run people follow and one they override out of habit. ## Details - **Solution:** MRP Software - **Group:** Production - **Platform:** CubeERP (https://cubeerp.co.uk/platform) - **Coverage:** Nationwide, implemented on site - **Also known as:** Material requirements planning, MRP system, MRP II software, Production requirements planning, Materials planning software ## What is included - **Multi-level explosion:** Demand exploded through every level of the bill of materials, including phantoms, alternates and by-products, with lead-time offsetting at each level. - **Netted against everything:** Free stock, allocated stock, work in progress, confirmed purchase orders and goods in transit all taken into account - so MRP does not order what is already on a lorry. - **Suggestions you can audit:** Every recommendation shows what drove it: which order, which minimum level, which forecast line. Planners accept, amend or reject with the reasoning in front of them. - **Lead times that are real:** Supplier lead times measured from actual delivery performance rather than from what was agreed on paper, with safety time by item where volatility warrants it. - **Exceptions first:** Reschedule-in, reschedule-out, cancel and expedite messages ranked by impact, so a planner starts with the twelve things that matter rather than a thousand-line report. - **What-if before you commit:** Run a scenario against a possible order or a changed forecast and see the buy and make consequences before you promise a date to a customer. ## Real-world use cases ### Planning in a spreadsheet with 40 tabs **Scenario:** A manufacturer planned in a spreadsheet that had grown for a decade. It was accurate when its owner was in, opaque to everybody else, and took a full day each week to refresh. **Outcome:** MRP runs nightly and produces an exception list rather than a rebuild. Planning is now a two-hour review, and two people can do it. ### Buying what was already inbound **Scenario:** Purchasing worked from stock levels alone. Items on order but not yet delivered were invisible, so the same component was routinely ordered twice in a busy week. **Outcome:** Inbound purchase orders and work in progress are netted off before a suggestion is raised. Duplicate ordering stopped, and stock value fell without service levels moving. ### Lead times taken on trust **Scenario:** Planning used the lead times suppliers quoted. Several suppliers were consistently a fortnight slower than they claimed, which was absorbed by expediting and air freight nobody costed. **Outcome:** Measured lead times replaced quoted ones. Planning became reliable, expediting fell sharply, and two suppliers were replaced on the basis of evidence rather than impression. ## Figures - **Nightly** Plan refreshed while nobody is in - **Traceable** Every suggestion back to its cause - **Measured** Lead times from actual deliveries ## Frequently asked questions **How often should MRP run?** Nightly for most businesses, with an on-demand run when something significant changes - a large order, a supplier failure, a design change. Continuous re-planning tends to produce noise rather than insight. **What is the difference between MRP and MRP II?** MRP plans materials. MRP II adds capacity - people, machines and work centres - so the plan is achievable as well as arithmetically correct. CubeERP does both; the capacity side is covered under production planning. **Can we plan from a forecast?** Yes. Forecasts can be loaded by item and period and consumed by actual orders as they arrive, so you are not double-counting demand once a forecast turns into a real order. **Does it handle minimum order quantities?** Yes - minimum order quantities, order multiples, economic order quantities, price-break optimisation and supplier-specific rules are all applied to the suggestion before a planner sees it. **What if our BOMs are not accurate yet?** Then MRP will be wrong, and it is better to know that before you start. Cleaning BOMs is normally the largest piece of work in a manufacturing implementation, and we plan for it explicitly rather than discovering it at go-live. ## Related solutions - **Manufacturing Software** - Bills of materials, works orders, routings, shop-floor booking and real job costing - for businesses that make things to order. https://cubeerp.co.uk/software/manufacturing-software - **Production Planning Software** - Schedule works orders against real capacity - people, machines and shifts - and see the effect of a rush job before you accept it. https://cubeerp.co.uk/software/production-planning-software - **Purchase Order Software** - Requisitions, approval limits, purchase orders raised from real demand, goods-in booking and three-way matching. https://cubeerp.co.uk/software/purchase-order-software - **Stock Control Software** - Multi-location stock with bin locations, barcode scanning, batch and serial traceability, and figures that are right first time. https://cubeerp.co.uk/software/stock-control-software ## Contact - **Product:** CubeERP - **Trading name of:** Cube Systems Limited (company number 17220899, ICO registration number ZC216972) - **Email:** hello@cubeerp.co.uk - **Sales:** sales@cubeerp.co.uk - **Support:** support@cubeerp.co.uk - **Telephone:** 01234 672 617 (+441234672617) - **Address:** Unit 11, Olney Business Park, Osier Way, Olney, Buckinghamshire, MK46 5FP - **Opening hours:** Monday to Friday, 9am to 5.30pm - **Part of:** Crushed Ice Group (https://crushedicegroup.co.uk)