Page 444 - Orlicky's Material Requirements Planning

422 PART 4 Looking Backward and Forward

SUMMARY

Grouping items chosen for strategic replenishment into buffer profiles allows for global
management of items that behave similarly. Despite providing 54 potential combinations
of buffers, typically even some of the most complex environments use fewer than 20 dif-
ferent profiles at any one time. These profiles will establish how individual item attrib-
utes will determine the top of a buffer by influencing the size of the zones that comprise
those buffers. The additional benefit of the zonal approach is that the zones can be color-
coded. This allows for highly visible planning and execution prioritization that will be
discussed in later chapters.