Your first material plan in a small workshop
Start with one product and one order to connect stock, material requirements and purchase shortages.
Start with one question
What materials are missing for the next order? Choose one simple product and a training order. You do not need to import your entire product history on the first day.
Prepare three inputs
Give each material a stable code, a clear unit of measure and a reliable stock balance. List the materials consumed by one finished unit: its bill of materials, or BOM. Add the order quantity and due date.
Check a small example
One kit uses four screws and one box. Ten kits require forty screws and ten boxes. With thirty screws and ten boxes available, the shortage is ten screws. This teaching example assumes no other demand, stock reservations or waste; real plans must account for those factors.
A shortage is not an automatic purchase authorization
Review physical stock, open purchase orders, supplier lead times and units before buying. Do not count quarantined or unapproved materials as usable stock. Material availability alone does not establish machine or labor capacity.
Practice separately from live operations
In a training workspace, enter items and stock, save the BOM, create the order, and compare the shortage with a manual calculation. Assign responsibility for real data before using the process operationally. The MRP SaaS guide walks through these steps with actual button names and expected results.