The Little Red Wagon: A Story About Assembly Requirements Planning

When a marketable product proliferates into numerous final configurations, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain a complete and accurate Bill of Material for each unique version. If all versions are not accurately recorded, subordinate component inventories become increasingly inaccurate, leading to component shortages and overages.

Does your company have these issues? Read how The Little Red Wagon Company got a handle on their entire supply chain by ALL departments using the same vocabulary.

Assembly Requirements Planning (ARP) is designed to handle Top Heavy Bill of Material Files. ARP was developed when a new product was introduced that had over a million possible final sales models. The existing Material Requirements Planning (MRP) system could not effectively handle such complexity.

Assembly Requirements Planning (ARP) was created to complement the established MRP system. Just how ARP accomplishes this task is presented herein.

Mr. Bruce R. Crosby has been a specialist in Production and Inventory Control since 1960. With over 40 years experience in his chosen field, he has held responsible positions in a wide variety of industries.

Mr. Crosby has always believed the best expert is the individual who does the actual job. Company personnel often know the best way to get the job done. Getting them involved makes the people doing the job part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

Mr. John A. Scarritt has been in the forefront of high tech systems and logistics solutions for 30 years, beginning with Aerospace where he was instrumental in the creation of the science of Earned Value at Hughes Aircraft. An international career in IT Management followed, featuring years as Head of Management Information Systems at the Aramco Oil Companys Material Supply Organization and Lead on the implementation of SAPs BW data warehouse. For the last 11 years, Mr. Scarritt has been an independent consultant to Fortune 500 companies all over the world specializing in Business Intelligence.