Sales & Operations Planning

Objective

Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) is a process used by many companies to help them ensure that their medium term plans for sales, operations, resources and finance are realistic. This course/workshop aims to provide an overview of what S&OP is, what must be done to implement it successfully, and the activities that must be carried out.

Learning Outcomes

• To recognise the benefits that may be achieved from a routine S&OP process
• To realise that S&OP is a monthly process to validate the medium term plans of the company, and to make decisions about what needs to be done to deliver those plans
• To differentiate between the major stages of the monthly process
• To appreciate who should be responsible for the stages
• To be able to usefully participate in the process
• To understand what needs to be done to support the process
• To appreciate the need for plans to be communicated up, down, and across the entire organisation
• To develop the skills to develop valid recommendations to maximise the output from the process

Content

• A business scenario without S&OP
• An overview of the process
• The inputs and outputs from each stage of the process:
• New Product Development, New Product Introduction, R&D
• Demand Planning
• Supply (Operations) Planning and Resource Planning
• S&OP meetings
• Development of an implementation path for S&OP
• In a workshop environment, evaluating, discussing and agreeing who should do what, and how, in the implementation

Duration

1 to 5 days, depending upon the audience and the required outcomes

Participants

All those within the organisation, from the top down, who will participate in the S&OP process.

Prerequisites

A basic understanding of the functions and working of the organisation