P6

Title:  Dependent Demand:  a Business Pattern for Balancing Supply and Demand

Author:  Robert Haugen
Email:  linkage@interaccess.com 
Postal address:
        Robert Haugen
        Nexgen Software Technologies
        280 Shuman Blvd
        Naperville IL 60563
Phone: 630/778-2502

Abstract:
        Dependent demand is a pattern that was originated by the Material
        Requirements Planning (MRP) software movement in the 1970's, but has
        wide applicability beyond its original context.
        This paper broadens the context to include distributed multi-company
        supply chain management systems, balancing supply and demand for all
        resources.
        The dependent demand pattern consists of recursive relationships
        between independent demands (external to the system) and the
        internal requirements to satisfy them (dependent demands).
        The result of applying the pattern is a persistent network structure
        which supports planning, scheduling, workflow and analysis.


Subject area:  Supply Chain Management Systems

Keywords:  Patterns, Business patterns, Supply chain management

Acknowledgements:

Thanks for the feedback to my shepherd, Gerard Meszaros;  the members of the 
Chicago Patterns Group, where this pattern was introduced;  and the 
discussion participants from the Business Patterns mail list: Ralph
Johnson, Stephen McHenry, Thomas Mercer Hursh, Martin Rojo, Paul J. Ste. Marie, 
and Shalom Reich. (Needless to say, they are not responsible for anything you
dislike about the current paper.)