Inventory management refers to the process of ordering, storing and using a company`s inventory. This includes the management of raw materials, components and finished products, as well as warehousing and processing such items. Material requirements planning (MRP) (a type of inventory management) is the earliest computer-based inventory management system. Businesses use MRP to improve their productivity. MRP works backwards from a production plan for finished goods to develop inventory requirements for components and raw materials. Some of the key benefits that can be derived from using an MRP system are: reduced per unit cost of production thus enabling an organization to price its products competitively; low inventory levels, especially for in-process materials; and better response to market demand. The disadvantages include: high costs and technical complexities in implementation; data entry and file maintenance requires considerable inputs in the form of training and education of personnel; and dependence on forecast values and estimated lead-time can sometimes be misleading.
Human nature in itself does not solely explain patterns of conflict and cooperation within international politics, however it is the basis upon which all other forces of these patterns can be explained. Many will claim that interactions between ethnicities, pursuits of national interests or protection of a state’s citizens also allow for an explanation of state-to-state interactions, but what they fail to recognize is that human nature allows each of these factors to take shape. As such, this essay will focus on realism’s view of human nature and primarily on defensive and offensive realism, as both go beyond the realm of classical realism in explaining why states behave the way they do. In order for this explanation to make sense, one must first analyze the duality of views of international politics within realism and neorealism. After this is addressed, one can then begin to examine how any other rationalization of patterns of conflict and cooperation is inevitably reliant on human nature, no matter which side of realism is used to understand it.
Realism is an interesting political theory in that it encompasses several disciplines rather than just one rigid and specific explanation of the interactions of political states. These subdivisions of realism are necessary to understand before explaining how realism is able to go beyond just human nature as a justification for conflict and cooperation. To begin, classical realism infers that human nature, which coincides with the behavior of an individual state, is based solely on the desire for power. This was first described by Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan in which he lays out four main explanations of why humanity acts the way it does in this conquest for power. These four assumptions of human nature are that all humans seek glory and pride, that humanity fears death, that humans are all equally vulnerable, and lastly, that humans are not always rational but are, in fact, always capable of rationality (76-77). The initial desire for power is what leads classical realists to believe that human nature is in a consistent state of competition, that human nature is inherently greedy and power hungry (Walt, 31). However, a new wave of realism called neorealism was furthered by Kenneth Waltz, and moves beyond human nature to define international politics. Neorealists address international politics as a “balance of power” in which weaker states team up against stronger states to create bipolarity, which neorealists believe to be more stable than the multipolar model of the world that classical realism illustrates (Walt, 31). There are even further divisions beyond neorealism, which will aid in illustrating how it is not only human nature, but also the influence of the international system that shapes the behavior of each state. The first subdivision, “defensive realism,” describes how a state will work to increase its power by focusing on its internal forces, such as military growth and forming alliances in order to
