S&op - Planificación Operativa De La Demanda

Sales and Operations Planning was a discipline first promoted as an important element of planning when Material Requirements Planning (MRP) evolved into Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRPII). One of the key aspects of this development was the fact that early MRP implementations were often plagued by the system being driven by unachievable plans. This in turn led to excess inventory being suckedinto businesses, the development of arrears and the reversion from the ‘new’ approach of planning (as embodied within MRP) to the ‘old’ or ‘fire-fighting’ culture. Click here for details on MRP and MRPII if you want to read about the background before investigating S&OP further on this page.
This is one of the topics regularly featuring within our training services – click here to see a samplecourse outline on the subject.

Definition
A recent definition of S&OP is that it is a decision-making process, to balance demand and supply, to align volume and mix and to integrate financial and operating plans. We employ this definition within our own work in the field because it makes three fundamental points that have perhaps been ignored in the jargon-ridden past:
It most definitelyinvolves decisions being made. It is not the merely a mechanism whereby a demand forecast is thrown into the company’s planning system.
The outcome of a successful S&OP process is a balance, a plan that the business can achieve. This balance is not only in terms of volume (we can produce 5000 units per month) but in terms of mix (. . . of which 2000 can be made of stainless steel and of which 1200can be baseplate-mounted).
Although the name implies the meeting of Sales and Operations, it is essential that the agreed outcome is also the driver for the financial plan. Of course, the sales and operations plans will be different, if for no other reason than that they are offset by the difference in time between product being made and the completion of sales.
In many cases, the business willhold finished goods stock and this is what allows a relatively stable production level in times of seasonal, or varying, demand. The result of S&OP is a statement of “this is what we are going to make, this is what we are going to sell and this is the financial plan.”
Within this, of course, the manufacturing plan is achievable, the sales plan can be met from the projected stock which issupported by planned output and the two combine to produce the financial outlook. The accountants don’t have a separate process at which they pull numbers out of thin air. While ‘thin air’ may be an exaggeration, if the financial plan is assembled independently, what credence can it hold? By combining financial planning with the S&OP process we increase the probability of the financial figures being met.Decision-Making
Robin Goodfellow has written an excellent paper on S&OP in the form of a fictional story of the approach being implemented in a business making to stock – he chose the pharmaceutical industry as one with which any reader will feel comfortable. Presumably, we all recognise that painkillers are made in different forms, different types and sizes of packing and sold in differentcountries with different legislation and language requirements. To read this article
Robin wrote the article from the points of view of the Sales and Operations Directors of the company, who document the failings of the previous processes within the business. There was discussion within the MLG team about some of the problems that these two people identified within Widget Pharmaceuticals. WasRobin exaggerating the number of problems that might be faced? Could any business really manage this key area so badly? “Well,” said Robin, “we are trying to highlight real-life issues. We’ve seen all these problems, haven’t we?” This won the day; we have indeed seen all these problems, though perhaps not all at the same time.
One of the major problems is senior management failing to recognise...