An MRP implementation checklist

Before you choose anything

• Write down the three questions you cannot answer today. They are what the system is for.
• Measure those three things now, however roughly, so there is a baseline.
• Find out who owns each spreadsheet and what is in it that nobody else knows.
• Decide what is deliberately staying where it is: accounts, CAD, payroll.

Data readiness

• Parts: one record per part, with the duplicates that accumulated over the years resolved.
• Bills of material: checked against what is actually built, level by level.
• Routings: operations in the right order with times that are approximately right.
• Suppliers: lead times that reflect reality, and minimum order quantities where they exist.
• Stock: counted, agreed and signed off, not estimated.
• Open orders: sales and purchase, with the dates currently promised.
• Work in progress: what is on the floor part-finished, and how far through it is.

Configuration

• Sites, work centres and the calendars they actually run.
• Roles and permissions matched to jobs, not to seniority.
• Numbering that matches what people already say out loud.
• Forms and documents that customers will see.

Testing

• Each role works a full day of their own work, on the devices they use.
• One complete job from enquiry to despatch, with quantities and costs reconciled at every step.
• A deliberate mistake, corrected, to see what the audit trail records.
• A restore from backup, timed and recorded.

Cutover and after

• A date, a fallback, and everyone knowing what the fallback is.
• Opening stock and open orders loaded and reconciled before the first day.
• Somebody on site or immediately reachable for the first week.
• A review at four weeks against the three questions you wrote down at the start.

What this does not cover

This is a general checklist. It does not cover integration testing, multi-site cutover, or regulated industries where validation requirements apply.

How an implementation runs · Moving from spreadsheets to MRP