Development of Load Balancing Systems in a Parallel MRP System

Abstract

The application of parallel computing system to MRP (Material Requirements Planning) is essential to achieve a real-time demand forecasting for a whole Supply Chain which consists of Multiple enterprises near future. The MRP using loosely connected multi-computer system is examined here. New methods of synchronization, load balancing and data access are required to keep high parallel efficiency increasing PE’s(Processing Elements). In this paper load balancing and data access methods are proposed. The prototype system can keep 96% parallel efficiency for the MRP with 120, 000 items on the 6 PE’s structure and can be robust against unbalanced load. The processing speed increases in liner fashion.