About the Book

A user of MRP System is always anxious to balance total aggregate (or units) lateness with total cost (sum of the inventory carrying cost and the set-up cost). This book seeks to give better solutions to managers managing MRP systems in manufacturing organizations. It introduces the concept of multi-pass heuristics in MRP context and shows that in variety of conditions of the shop floor (such as high and low variations in machine utilisation) these (multi-pass given in this book) can be applied to give better performance on the criterion of total aggregate (or units) lateness with insignificant rise in total costs.

The author explains a heuristic that modifies the holding cost (of items/assemblies that have a higher difference of actual and the theoretical holding costs) and empirically shows that this is better than the heuristic that modified the lead time (of items/assemblies that have higher difference of actual and the theoretical holding costs). The book also talks about a series of heuristics that seek to attain co-ordinated arrival of assemblies at assembly centers with encouraging results.

About the Author

RRK Sharma is heading the Department of Industrial and Management Engineering. IIT, Kanpur, for the past over two years. A PhD in management from IIM. Ahmedabad, Sharma has taught over 16 different courses in management to IIT students for the last over 18 years. Well versed with all the facets of management, he has unique ability to integrate different areas of the subject. To date, he has written over 33 papers in international/national journals.

As a researcher, Sharma has made some important contributions to the field of management science. He has developed the fastest known algorithm for preparing PERT networks (that runs in O (n2 log(n) time). For the single and multi-stage warehouse location problems, he has developed the ‘capacity constraints’ that result in getting stronger linear programming bounds to yield faster solution (optimal) to these problems. He has written many papers in the field of manufacturing strategy, warehouse location theory, strategic management, entrepreneurship, portfolio selection problem and MRP (manufacturing resources planning systems) systems.

Sharma was recently appointed a member of Research Council of International Biographical Centre. In 2006, he received the American Medal of Honor and the Man of the Year Award, given by the American Biographical Institute. Besides, he also received the Archimedes Award for his contributions to the field of management science, and Life Time Achievement Award, by the International Biographical Centre, Cambridgeshire, England.