Question

In Chapter 13, we discuss resource management and how effectively and efficient utilization of these resources. This concept applies to both manufacturing and services organizations. How do the concepts of master production scheduling and material requirements planning translate to service organization? Provide an example. Please write at least 150 words or more.

Answer 1

Many service based organization make use of two levels of resource disaggregation. Service organization disaggregate their overall sales, resources or budget, etc. with no physical inventories and non-discrete outputs. Manufacturing focus towards master scheduling till the end item level. For example, surgical kits in the hospitals, meals in restaurants, standard services in the hotel, etc. uses the same concepts. In this case the MPS becomes the number of different items in the example and introduce them based on the time duration. Thus, the dependent demand of the items and MRP is more often used in the service organization. Similarly, bills of labor also is used in the services to capture estimates. Therefore, the concepts from MPS and MRP are used in the organization. For example, a hospital might need to have the estimates for the clinical work hours (MPS) and medical kits needed to serve the inpatients (MRP).