On October 22nd and 23rd, 2015, Ana Juaristi from Avanzosc and Jordi Ballester Alomar from Eficent attended the MRP Design Workshop held at Odoo S.A. office in Brussels.

Companies that participated were: Odoo S.A (on R&D team, members that were responsible for accounting and inventory design and Usability team), IT IS, AG (Germany), Bheco Services (Morocco), Ucamco (Belgium), Tenovar (Malta), Syleam (France), Avanzosc (Spain), Prisme (Switzerland), Omnia Solutions (Italy), Falinwa (France / China), Open Net (Switzerland), Eficent (Spain).

The preparation for the Workshop was done collecting the specifications in a shared document containing the initial specifications: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Mr62dCpHga4aNQYiP6nqJ8ekl6vybmomZYc8yXxWDJ_o/edit

The workshop started with an introduction to the specifications by Fabien. This was followed by the introduction of the work in MRP done by partners. Omnia Solutions introduced their OdooPLM solution, Bheco Services and Ucamco introduced their respective approach to Master Production Scheduling (MPS). Avanzosc introduced their work done on BOMs (BOM at template level, configurations, versioning), MPS and manufacturing by operations.

Afterwards the workshop was divided into smaller working sessions, where smaller groups (3-4 people) gathered to discuss on a specific topic during 45 minutes. The groups would then share their conclusions. The feedback was then incorporated into the specifications document as proposed changes.

Day 2 was divided again into working sessions with smaller groups, now reviewing Quality Management and Maintenance.

To Odoo S.A., some of the key factors that will be considered in the solution will be:    

• Ease to use

• Facilitate communication between employees

What was accomplished

• Significant and valuable feedback was obtained by specialists from the companies that attended to the workshop. Odoo S.A. is now reviewing all the review comments gathered.

• Attendees got to know each other. Opportunities for collaboration on the topic of MRP were identified during the workshop.

• Attendees better understand the product development strategy followed by Odoo S.A.

What was not accomplished

• RMA (Returns Merchandise Authorisation) was not discussed at all

• The workshop was not so much about the design of the solution and preparation of final mockups, as initially proposed in the agenda, but more a series of brainstorming sessions with the attendees.

• Existing MRP software, other than the solutions built by attendees using Odoo, was not really analyzed during the workshop sessions.

Licensing

The proposed split has been published in the specifications and can be found here.

Roadmap

Odoo expects to be able to release the new MRP features by March 1st, 2016 for community and reviewers to test them.