الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Manufacturing razor blades is very challenging, both from a technical and from a planning point of view. It is a very specialized and knowledge based industry. It has many product vari¬ations, which are ordered with varying production volumes and short lead times. Production must have consistent quality and steady rates that should be minimally affected by machine setup, tool change, etc.
Proper resource allocation is the major problem in such an environment. It makes the dif¬ference between success and failure. An effective solution to this problem is Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP Il). It is a very popular approach, which did not lose interest until now, whether in research or application, especially that it is an extension to the well-known approach: Material Requirements Planning (MRP), and that its functions represent the core of a more advanced and more complicated approach: Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP).
This study applies MRP II to the razor blade industry. It provides an Infonnation System that displays the factory operations status and performance. It does not provide optimal solu¬tions, but applicable ones. It helps the decision maker observe the situation and test different possible scenarios, after which he/she decides the proper course of action according to their expertise.
The literature review showed the applicability ofMRP 11, the functions it contains, and the outputs it should provide. The currently implemented system of LORD precision industries (LP), the razor blade factory in Alexandria, was analyzed and compared with MRP II require¬ments. The proposed model was developed in database using Microsoft ® Office Access 2007. The database was tested using sample data, then it was gradually applied to the currently im¬plemented system with continuous feedback and modification until it reached its final form.
The main conclusions and recommendations for future work include:
• MRPII is applicable and needed in the razor blade industry.
• The developed system was applied and showed noticeable success, whether on per¬sonnellevel (increased motivation, cooperation, and involvement), operational level (faster response to demand changes due to better coordination between production de¬partments), or system level (more control on safety stock, increased coordination with clients, and increased sales-to-production ratio).