Shortage Forecast

 
One of the main functions of an MRP Program is to tell you what materials you need, when you need them and, based on Vendor Lead Times, when you should be placing your purchase orders to ensure the materials arrive when required.

In MiniMRP you create your Works Orders and allocate materials to those work orders. The 'Allocation' process doesn't actually take the materials from your inventory. It simply tells MiniMRP what your future plans are.

MiniMRP can then look at your current inventory, your Work Orders and any existing Purchase Orders to generate a report showing you exactly what materials you need and when you need them. This is the MiniMRP "Shortage Forecast Report"

The shortage report can be configured to show all items that will be required within a given time period - or only those items forecast to cause shortages within that time period. In any case, if you have a busy schedule, your report could contain quite a lot of data. But you'll see that MiniMRP uses colors to draw your attention to areas of interest. The report tells you what you're going to consume - the colors tell you where there's going to be a shortage and even suggests the date on which you need to place purchase orders to ensure the materials arrive when required.