Production and inventory control at ABB Motors and Volvo Wheel Loaders, two examples of MRP in practical use

promise, accumulative lead-time Abstract. The paper presents the main routines of production and inventory control at ABB Motors, VaÈ steraÊ s and Volvo Wheel Loaders, Eskilstuna. The primary interest is to present how Material Requirements Planning (MRP) is used in these two companies. If the number of end items is large, the com-pany assembles-to-order or makes-to-order then additions to pure MRP seem to be necessary. ABB Motors and Volvo Wheel Loader use: planning bills, a normal bill of materials with `adding bills of materials’, a master production schedule planning system with an available-to-promise function and a home-made `system ’ for modules available-to-promise.One im-portant measure for the both companies is the accumulative lead-time. An increase of the Master Production Schedule in a shorter time than the accumulative lead-time is avoided, because it will lead to suggestions of purchase in past time periods and therefore most probably to future material shortages. 1