MRP-as-a-Service: An Alternative Way to Execute Models for Business Processes

by Hyoung-Gon Lee, Edmund W. Schuster

With the current interest in SaaS, it is just a matter of time before material requirement planning systems (MRP) become an Internet-based service rather than a dedicated software application hosted on local computers. Eventually, it might become obsolete to use packaged software for management of manufacturing processes and other applications in business. While packaged software will be around for many years into the future, peak sales might have been reached with the most recent economic expansion. For the US market, where the growth of manufacturing has slowed considerably and the idea of MRP is a mature technology, SaaS represents an innovative way of reducing operation costs.