In this module, we will introduce the Car Enterprise Management Tools such as ERP, MRP, and MES, that are often employed to integrate capabilities of various entities through the supply chain. We will provide a broad overview of these tours and we'll review the capabilities of each of them. Upon completion of this module, you will be able to; distinguish activities related to scheduling, production planning, and inventory control in a manufacturing system, to state the features of manufacturing process management systems, described the capabilities of enterprise resource planning systems. Let's define three concepts: inventory, scheduling, and production planning. Inventories are the resources or manufactured products that a company hoards, for example raw materials that the company has stored for future use. The scheduling is the process of arranging, optimizing, and allocating different resources to manufacturing activities. Production planning refers to the planning of production activities by proper resource allocation based on consumer demands and production capacity. Production planning has four steps and basically deals with determining how much and when to produce. The first step is to identify the required product mix and factory load with respect to the demand. The second step is to allocate the available current level of resources and match them with production load. The third step is to schedule the actual workload activities in the factory, and finally step four is to schedule and setup the delivery of the products. Now that we are familiar with the concepts of inventory, scheduling and production planning, let's talk about Material Requirements Planning or MRP1 systems. MRP1 is a software-based tool that matches production planning with inventory control of a company in order to control and manage manufacturing processes. MRP1 aims at optimizing the connection of supply and demand. It ensures enough materials are available for production, in order to meet demand. If that is not possible, it determines what to purchase and when. In addition, it schedules production activities and ensures that the level of inventory is maintained as low as possible to avoid inventory holding costs. For each component of the product or assembly, MRP1 seeks to establish required inventory levels. The MRP1 system starts with establishing the total inventory required. Then the sum of beginning inventory levels and current receipts is deducted from the total inventory requirement to establish inventory needs. Typically, a safety stock is added to mitigate contingencies. MRP1 integrates data production schedules and inventory levels to determine resource purchases and delivery schedules. Production of large quantities of identical products was something common in 1960's and 1970's, when MRP1 first was released to the market. These days the consumer plays a significant role in production planning and influences many aspects of manufacturing systems.