| Abstract: | Material requirements planning (MRP), a comprehensive planning and control technique based upon the dependent demand principle, enables manufacturing organizations to provide better customer service, reduce inventory investment, and increase resource utilization. This paper extends the dependent demand principle to the service sector and thus provides the basis for applying MRP to higher education. In the short run, administrators can schedule the necessary number of required courses and load each course based on student priorities to provide increased customer (i.e., student) service and faculty utilization. In the long run, course enrollment forecasts can be utilized by administrators to plan and control changes in faculty resources across departments and schools. |
