Manufacturing processes

Manufacturing Resource Planning systems are functionally complex systems. In providing effective resource management tools, they support the integration of a wide variety of complex functions. These systems also undergo frequent changes as business needs change. For these reasons, analysis techniques which provide methods to create clear, flexible systems must be sought. Object oriented analysis is such a technique. This thesis presents the development of an object oriented model for a Manufacturing Resource Planning system (MRPII). It will be shown that the use of objects and object oriented techniques to model complex systems such as MRPII results in system models which are more easily understood and more flexible to change than other more conventional representations. Future research may include the formal design and implementation of the model. The flexibility of the implemented system could then be compared to the level of flexibility of a non-object based system.