Abstract
In current supply chains where there is a considerable offshoring of raw materials and parts suppliers, production planning can no longer be considered a separate and independent process from transportation planning. However, current systems only focus on production decisions, regardless of the transport considerations. This means that proposed production plans could be suboptimal, and even infeasible. In these cases, manual replanning is a common practice in companies until production plans are made feasible as far as available transport capacity is concerned. For the purpose of avoiding the suboptimization of these plans, we present a conceptual model, the MRP IV, which serves as a reference to develop a new production technology and integrates material planning, production resource capacities and supply chain transport decisions, and acts as a baseline to propose resolution models and algorithms required to develop MRP IV as a decision-making system. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.
