Material Requirements Planning, or MRP, is used to generate production schedules for the manufacture of complex products. MRP takes the demand schedule for a finished product and the lead times to produce the finished product and all the various subcomponents that go into the finished product, then works backwards to come up with a detailed just-in-time production schedule that meets the demand schedule.

MRP's main focus is finding a feasible just-in-time production schedule that meets demand. MRP does not, however, attempt to optimize the production schedule to minimize total production costs. In many cases, the problems solved by MRP are so complex optimization would be prohibitive.