Material Requirements Planning [MRP], an American technology, is a part of a comprehensive set of manufacturing/materials planning tools that, in response to foreign competition over the past two decades, has evolved into a highly effective management planning and control system encompassing all functions within the manufacturing environment. It is, in effect, "an information processing system that seeks to develop and maintain a set of orders that support [a] production plan, while simultaneously 'minimizing' the inventory levels within the production system."