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It rings a bell? DDRMP has been gaining popularity for a while and sometimes we even listen to some companies wondering why they should invest in planning or scheduling solutions since they are already engaging in a DDMRP project.
If you know the buzz word but are not really sure of what is behind, here is in a nutshell what DDRMP is and what it is not.
DDMRP in a nutshell:
DDMRP aims at optimizing the inventories levels by determining where the buffers need to be along the BOM levels and what their levels should be to optimize lead times, minimize the overall WIP, absorb the uncertainty of the demand and supplies, generate optimum production / supply / replenishment orders. And all of this in a dynamic way along the horizon to adapt to seasonality or react to demand changes, while providing a colors and priorities based easy to read communication methodology down to the execution to drive the operations.
What it is:
Keeping aside the debates about whether or not DDMRP is lean (nice post at thejitcompany.com here if you feel like deep diving), DDMRP is a significant enhancement of the traditional MRP calculations that enable to manage dynamically the inventory targets and lot sizing policies by periods of time while in traditional MRP these targets are static (or managed at product versions levels) and need to be revisited regularly.
In short, Demand Driven MRP is one MRP calculation methodology and one way to look at the processes that calculate, plan, and drive the execution of the purchasing, production, and distribution orders of a company.
What it is not:
DDMRP is not an Advance Planning and Scheduling solution. These solutions key added value is to model the operations complexity in order to build plans and schedules at finite capacity, while providing a user friendly digital working environment that enables the collaboration of the planning and scheduling stakeholders in an integrated way with the other elements of the information system such as the ERPs to make sure all the organization is aligned around one single source of truth.
In short, DDMRP methodology tells you "what" to purchase / produce / distribute, but it is not a solution that helps you to optimize and manage the "how" in a collaborative way.
Can DDMRP and APS work together ?
Most DDMRP adopters are ERPs (which MRP calculations techniques were lacking improvements over the last 20 years) and time buckets based mid/long term planning solutions.
APS solutions can come with their own MRP calculation optimizations. Some are DDMRP compliant, some are using other optimization techniques. All of them share the common goal of identifying and supporting the execution of optimized plans and schedules.
Anyhow, when it comes down to their implementation and integration, in most of the cases APS solution take the results of the ERP's MRP calculation as an input, plan and schedule it at finite capacity, support planners in taking optimization decisions, and feedback the optimized result to the ERP to propagate the decisions to the different operations stakeholders.
In short, whether your MRP is traditional or Demand Driven, APS solutions will optimize its performance while delivering the organizational benefits of digitizing and integrating the end to end planning and scheduling processes.
