Cosmetics · MRP
MRP for cosmetic manufacturers
Today
The plan says the job runs on Tuesday, but the bulk needs a material that's in quarantine and a component that has a six-week lead time nobody entered.
Generic MRP plans against static bills of material and assumes stock is stock. In cosmetics, material is lot-controlled, shelf-life limited, sometimes quarantined and often substituted, and the formula itself changes during the job.
With Worldover
Worldover MRP connects the released formula, lot status, shelf life, supplier lead times, MOQs and line capacity to the customer order it exists to serve.
You commit to dates you can hold, and you find out about a shortage while it's still a purchasing decision rather than a missed dispatch.
USED BY 250+ INDUSTRY LEADERS
The problem
Why generic MRP failscosmetics manufacturer teams.
Stock figures ignore quality status
Quarantined, retained and expiring material still counts as available in most planning tools, so plans look feasible until the day they aren't.
Formula changes don't re-plan
A late formula revision changes the material list, but the purchase requisitions were raised against the old one.
Packaging is planned separately from bulk
Components come from different suppliers with different lead times, so the bulk is ready and the job still can't ship.
A working day
A Monday planning meeting
Four jobs are scheduled for the week and one customer has added a rush order.
Today: planning exports stock, asks QA what is released, asks procurement about the late component, and rebuilds the schedule in a spreadsheet.
In Worldover: each job shows its released formula, available lot quantities net of quarantine and expiry, and the components with confirmed dates.
The rush order is tested against real capacity and material before it's accepted.
The shortage that would have stopped Thursday's job is raised as a purchase action on Monday morning.
How it runs
How MRP worksinside Worldover.
01
Demand arrives with its product record
Orders and forecasts reference the product and released formula, so requirements are explosion of the real recipe.
02
Availability reflects quality and shelf life
Only genuinely usable lots count towards coverage, with expiry taken into account for the planned run date.
03
Supply parameters are held per supplier
MOQ, lead time, pack size and qualification status shape the recommended purchase, not just the reorder point.
04
Capacity and sequence are visible
Line availability, changeover and allergen sequencing are part of the plan rather than a note on the whiteboard.
What's in it
The detail behindMRP.
Manufacturing Execution System (MES)
Electronic batch records, dual signatures, QA release and full lot traceability.
Electronic batch records
Replace the paper batch record with records captured live across the manufacturing process.
Three-level order structure
Mixing, encapsulation and finished goods modelled as a linked order hierarchy, with material and lot flow between each level.
Dual-signature control
Performer and verifier electronic signatures against each recorded step, supporting 21 CFR Part 11 electronic signatures.
Multi-stage sampling and QA release
In-process sampling points and staged quality releases before a batch can progress.
Lot and batch traceability
Full lot traceability across every stage.
Incoming goods QA
Goods-in quality checks on receipt, with an internal lot ID assigned to every received material.
Demand Planning
Demand forecasting and sales velocity tracking feeding production planning.
Demand forecasting
Forecast from raw order data pulled through the Shopify and Fulfill APIs, with seasonality and trend analysis. Forecasts recalibrate as demand changes.
Sales velocity tracking
Sell-through by product, channel and region, replacing the manual demand work that drives stock-level and production inconsistency.
Production planning integration
AI-proposed manufacturing jobs from current inventory, incoming demand, safety stock and supplier lead times, surfaced for manual approval, then fed into production planning with automatic raw material ordering.
Production Planning
Production orders, scheduling, BOM explosion and AI-led capacity planning.
Production order management
Orders linked to formulations, BOMs and inventory, tracked through every manufacturing stage.
Scheduling and capacity planning
Schedule from a full resource map of machinery, labour, shifts and skill matrices, allocating machine slots, packing, filling and labour for maximum utilisation.
Labour costing and allocation
Cost labour against orders with configurable rate cards.
Bill of materials explosion
Explode BOMs from formulations to generate material requirements for each run.
PO management
Purchase orders linked to production requirements and supplier lead times.
AI-led automated production planning
Scheduling that optimises across machine throughput, staff capability, raw material lead times and job priorities, surfacing issues in real time with suggested fixes. Replaces the manual scheduling spreadsheet. Requires Inventory Management.
Inventory Management
Stock control, purchasing and supplier management in one place.
Inventory overview
A dashboard of stock levels for every item: raw materials, packaging and finished goods.
Stock and non-stock items
Separate items you always hold from items ordered for a specific job.
Request stock
Team members request stock against particular jobs.
PO management
End-to-end management of customer purchase orders.
Supplier order management
Supplier orders in one place, removing the email switching procurement relies on today.
Stock log audit
The audit trail underneath every stock calculation.
Warehouse Management
Locations, receiving, picking and dispatch with barcode scanning.
Location management
Zones, aisles, racks and bin locations with configurable hierarchies.
Receiving and putaway
Receive against purchase orders and assign putaway locations with barcode scanning.
Pick, pack and dispatch
Pick lists from production or customer orders, with pack confirmation and dispatch workflows.
Bin and location transfers
Stock movements between locations with a full audit trail.
Integration with Inventory
Natively linked to Inventory Management for real-time stock visibility.
The difference
Why the substance recordmakes the difference.
Planning on the substance record means a single material shortage shows its full consequence at once: which formulas, which jobs, which customers, which promised dates. Substitution decisions are made against approved alternatives, not against whatever else is on the shelf.
Better together
What changes when MRPshares a record with the rest of your setup.
MRP + ERP
Purchasing, costs and order commitments are driven by the same plan rather than a parallel one.
Explore ERPMRP + QMS
Lot status flows straight into availability, so blocked material never enters a schedule.
Explore QMSMRP + PLM
A formula change triggers a re-plan instead of an out-of-date requisition.
Explore PLMWillow
What teams actually askonce the record is in one place.
- What stops the jobs scheduled this week from running, and what needs ordering today?
- If we move this 2,000 unit run to next Tuesday, what expires before then?
- Which approved alternative materials could cover the shortfall on this formula?
Willow doesn't replace expert judgment. It removes the searching, re-keying and chasing between the systems that hold your answers.
Request a demo
We'll walk through your current workflow, then show the same workflow running on one record.
Research
Compared with the alternatives
If you're still building a shortlist, these break the market down side by side.
- ShortlistBest MRP software for cosmetics and chemicals in 2026Planning and materials tools ranked for substance-based manufacturing.Read it
- ComparisonWorldover vs NetSuiteWhere a generic cloud ERP stops on formulation and regulation.Read it
- ShortlistBest cosmetics ERPs in 2026How the main cosmetics ERPs compare on formulation, batch and regulatory depth.Read it