• Material planning systems use databases to store information.Year planning image by Stefano Maccari from Fotolia.com
  
  Material planning involves planning the ordering, production and shipment of product. Material planning software uses databases to hold this information for Material Requirements Planning (MRP) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) calculations.
  
  

Types of Material Planning Information Used in Databases

• There are two main types of material planning data: process design information and product information. Product information includes the engineering specifications for the product, plus planning for the ordering, processing and shipment of the materials used to make the product. Process design information includes assembly instructions, test procedures and instructions on how to set machines to build the product.
  
  

Product Information

• 1. Engineering specifications, including drawings and change notices for these drawings.
  2. Material costs, such as the costs of all raw materials and the materials needed to process the raw material into the product, like glue, adhesives and coatings.
  3. Material planning data. This includes bills of material, parts lists, and substitute parts used to build a product.
  4. Lot tracking. Lots are tracked by date code and quantity. Lots may be tracked to ensure their usage before they expire or in case of recall.
  
  

Process Design Information

• 1. Production scheduling data, such as part order lead times, manufacturing times, and cycle time. This information is used by material planning systems to calculate need-by dates and build schedules.
  2. Process specifications. Material planning databases store the process router by which the product is made, comprising the manufacturing instructions used by operators for each step of the manufacturing operation.
  3. Manual labor tracking: data to track labor used to build a product as it is built.
  4. Machine usage data like cycle time, throughput per machine, system downtime and utilization rates.
  
  

Additional Information Used in ERP Material Planning Databases

• ERP systems include maintenance and non-value-added data that MRP systems do not. ERP systems often encompass maintenance planning, since this shuts down production lines. ERP process design information can also include overhead labor tracking, and ERP material planning databases can track parts during the manufacturing process and record its status as it is processed until shipment to the customer.