We have 20 years experience building MRP (Material Requirements Planning) systems. Unsaid MRP was IBM's killer app that helped to sell millions of computing systems to business. Fundamentally MRP helps to plan inventory and production using a bill-of-materials processor algorithm. page 
Joseph Orlicky, IBM engineer who developed the netting algorithm MRP.
MRP helps to create certainty of supply.
MRPs heyday spans 1975 to 2000, although MRP remains a core module of ERP systems from SAP, Oracle, Microsoft and a few more focused on manufacturing. After 2000 as the internet made globalization more pervasive, supply became abundant.
Demand Driven MRP
Google and Amazon took over the lead and now dominate business computing through ad-tech and ecommerce. Both have proprietary machine learning based MRP algorithms to fulfill their modern online businesses. Yet their focus is on creating certainty of demand (not supply).
Nothing remains the same.
Prof. Julian Allwood, Engineering and Environment at Cambridge University.
If we join some dots up we see climate change is driving a shift to meet carbon neutral goals. This is how we came across Material Demand Reduction and Prof. Julian Allwood, a professor in engineering and environment at Cambridge University. We posit everything to do with MRP and business will be optimized for MDR. page
From 2009-13 Allwood held an EPSRC Leadership Fellowship, to explore ‘material efficiency’ as a climate mitigation strategy – delivering material services with less new material. This led to publication in 2012 of the book “Sustainable Materials: with both eyes open” which can be read online. site
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YOUTUBE LhflYFJbuic Obsolescence and the Circular Economy. Credits to: Shannon Stephens cover of Depeche Mode's song "World In My Eyes"