Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP)

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Transform production and inventory planning into integrated decision-making

Since its inception in the 1980s, Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) has been a vital process for managing profitability and risk. Demand Solutions S&OP is a flexible, customizable system that takes the process from data collection to a dynamic supply chain management plan that drives production and sales. Combining demand planning and S&OP planning into an integrated approach means executives spend less time reacting to problems and more time managing opportunities.

Everyone wants executive time—make sure you deliver value when you get it.

Tailor your software to your process - not the other way around

Too often, planning tools follow strict methodologies that turn the process into an internal game of Twister. These days, there are many stakeholders involved in the demand planning decision-making.They all need to stay involved. Demand Solutions S&OP is flexible to adapt to your management preferences.

• The standard configuration comprises six sections providing executive-level information on Bookings, Sales, Production, Inventory, Shipments and Backlog. All sections are configurable to fit your particular business.
• Rows can be customized to meet your specific requirements. The standard configuration includes Sales, Production and Inventory comparisons with Last Year, Budget and Latest Estimate, so that gaps, deviations and trends can be readily identified.
• Demand Solutions Sales & Operations Planning can be configured to provide executive information at whatever product-family or business levels of detail your management team wants.

Dynamic business planning

Most companies create an annual plan. Work stops. Plans are built and rarely revisited. Demand Solutions S&OP can create annual fiscal business plans that are dynamic and easy to change mid course. It allows you to look at best and worst-case forecasts (or any level in between) to let you build strategies and contingencies that will allow you to change your behavior as hard sales numbers become available. You can run “what if” scenarios based on any assumptions you want. With Demand Solutions S&OP, you can:

• Establish volume balance by product families
• Tie volume to mix inside the planning parameter
• Integrate operational plans with financial plans
• Set appropriate policy and inventory planning strategy
• Optimize inventory

Drive your business. See your gaps.

• Sales & Operations Planning lets you see exceptions between your business plan and the plans dynamically generated in the planning tool. The exception alerts are color coded so you can easily spot problems.
• A search capability allows you to identify, by exception, the families or business units where user-defined levels of deviations are occurring.
• Work from a single set of numbers. No more dueling spreadsheets.
• A good S&OP process starts with good forecast management.

Demand Solutions Sales & Operations Planning establishes a common repository of pertinent information necessary for the planning process: forecast management data, inventory planning information, shipments and production. The system allows you to combine data from sales, marketing, production, procurement, transportation and finance for a unified view.

Scenario planning

What is the effect of an economic downturn on our business?
What is the impact if we close or lose a plant?
What is the effect if we add a new sales territory?

In Demand Solutions S&OP, you can make changes to your planning assumptions in the existing plan and save the changes as you conduct “what if” scenarios.

• Demand Solutions S&OP is fully integrated with Demand Solutions Forecast Management and Demand Solutions Requirements Planning and imports data through the Forecast Management database. The user-defined Import/Export utility within Demand Solutions products makes it remarkably easy to interface directly with other business systems.
  
  
• The data in Demand Solutions S&OP may be reviewed and adjusted on the screen or reviewed in graphical or printed formats. S&OP’s powerful “what if” capabilities allow management to simulate new business scenarios and to quantify their impact on production, inventory and backlog. Year-end projections are continuously updated to provide focus on fiscal year performance.
  
  
• Custom views can be saved and refreshed as new data is available and assumptions can be recorded and incorporated, within a notepad, for future reference.