diff --git a/R/clusterFunctionsOpenLava.R b/R/clusterFunctionsOpenLava.R
index 8894745..4dbb6d6 100644
--- a/R/clusterFunctionsOpenLava.R
+++ b/R/clusterFunctionsOpenLava.R
@@ -30,10 +30,16 @@ makeClusterFunctionsOpenLava = function(template.file, list.jobs.cmd = c("bjobs"
   # or a non-existent job ID is entered.
   Sys.setenv(LSB_BJOBS_CONSISTENT_EXIT_CODE = "Y")
 
-  submitJob = function(conf, reg, job.name, rscript, log.file, job.dir, resources, arrayjobs) {
+  submitJob = function(conf, reg, job.name, rscript, log.file, job.dir, resources, arrayjobs, np = 1L) {
     outfile = cfBrewTemplate(conf, template, rscript, "job")
     # returns: "Job <128952> is submitted to default queue <s_amd>."
-    res = runOSCommandLinux("bsub", stdin = outfile, stop.on.exit.code = FALSE)
+    if (np > 1L) {
+      args <- paste(c("-n ", np), collapse="")
+      res = runOSCommandLinux("bsub", args = args, stdin = outfile, stop.on.exit.code = FALSE)
+    } else {
+      res = runOSCommandLinux("bsub", stdin = outfile, stop.on.exit.code = FALSE)
+    }
+
     # FIXME filled queues
     if (res$exit.code > 0L) {
       cfHandleUnknownSubmitError("bsub", res$exit.code, res$output)
diff --git a/R/submitJobs.R b/R/submitJobs.R
index 8d120c7..5178b2c 100644
--- a/R/submitJobs.R
+++ b/R/submitJobs.R
@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@
 #' chunked = chunk(getJobIds(reg), n.chunks = 2, shuffle = TRUE)
 #' submitJobs(reg, chunked)
 submitJobs = function(reg, ids, resources = list(), wait, max.retries = 10L, chunks.as.arrayjobs = FALSE,
-  job.delay = FALSE, progressbar = TRUE) {
+  job.delay = FALSE, progressbar = TRUE, np = 1L) {
   ### helper function to calculate the delay
   getDelays = function(cf, job.delay, n) {
     if (is.logical(job.delay)) {
@@ -215,6 +215,7 @@ submitJobs = function(reg, ids, resources = list(), wait, max.retries = 10L, chu
           batch.result = cf$submitJob(
             conf = conf,
             reg = reg,
+	    np = np,
             job.name = sprintf("%s-%i", reg$id, id1),
             rscript = rscripts[i],
             log.file = getLogFilePath(reg, id1),
diff --git a/examples/cfOpenLava/openlava-rmpi.tmpl b/examples/cfOpenLava/openlava-rmpi.tmpl
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..63eb30e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/examples/cfOpenLava/openlava-rmpi.tmpl
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+#BSUB -J <%= job.name %>   # name of the job
+#BSUB -o <%= log.file %>                       # output is sent to logfile, stdout + stderr by default
+
+# very simple system, no resources....
+
+# we merge R output with stdout from OpenLava, which gets then logged via -o option
+/opt/openlava/bin/openmpi-mpirun -np 1 R CMD BATCH "<%= rscript %>" /dev/stdout
diff --git a/external_tests/openlava-rmpi.R b/external_tests/openlava-rmpi.R
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3b7ccbd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/external_tests/openlava-rmpi.R
@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+library(BatchJobs)
+
+conf = BatchJobs:::getBatchJobsConf()
+
+conf$cluster.functions = makeClusterFunctionsOpenLava("/home/clusteradmin/BatchJobs/examples/cfOpenLava/openlava-rmpi.tmpl")
+
+reg = makeRegistry(id = "BatchJobsRmpiExample")
+
+f = function(x) {
+  library("Rmpi")
+  
+  slaveno <- mpi.universe.size() - 1
+  if (slaveno < 1) {
+    slaveno <- 1
+  }
+  
+  mpi.spawn.Rslaves(nslaves=slaveno)
+  mpi.remote.exec(paste("I am",mpi.comm.rank(),"of",mpi.comm.size()))
+  mpi.close.Rslaves()
+  mpi.exit()
+  
+}
+batchMap(reg, f, 1)
+submitJobs(reg, np=2)
+showStatus(reg)
+waitForJobs(reg)
+showStatus(reg)