Green MRP: identifying the material and environmental impacts of production schedules

Interest in environmentally responsible manufacturing has increased in recent times. However, this attention has focused primarily on the design activities of the firm. Largely overlooked have been the planning/scheduling activities of manufacturing. This paper introduces a new tool that integrates environmental concerns into the material planning activities and identifies the waste streams generated in both quantitative and financial terms. This approach should be interesting to practitioners and researchers in that it is based on the widely used MRP processing logic. This new approach is called Green MRP. Examining the feasibility and effectiveness of this procedure, the research presented draws on production data for a taillight assembly produced by an American automobile manufacturer. The results show this approach is not only feasible but also has great potential.