“Our S&OP meeting is a forecast argument, and nobody signs the plan.”

Demand brings one number, supply brings another, finance has a third in the budget, and operations plan from whichever they heard last. Nothing is signed, so nothing is measured, and next month the same argument starts again.

What usually goes wrong

• The baseline forecast is someone's spreadsheet, so nobody knows what the statistics said before the planners changed it
• Planners type over the forecast, so there is no record of what was changed, by whom or why
• Stock targets were set years ago, and every planner defends their own stock as the stock the business needs
• Demand and production are planned in different files, so the plan that gets signed is not the plan that gets run
• The monthly plan is turned into shifts and work orders by hand, on a whiteboard or in a spreadsheet
• Nobody checks whether there are enough trained people to run next month's plan
• The plan is in units and the budget is in euros, and nobody has turned the units into money to compare the two
• Sign-off happens in a meeting, so nobody can say later which version was approved, or by whom

It suits any company that plans supply against demand: a manufacturer planning its lines, people and purchases, a distributor planning stock against a forecast, a retailer planning replenishment.

How the software answers it

1. A demand plan people believe. A statistical forecast for every product and market, with the best method picked by testing each one against past months, then locked. Planners adjust it, each change with a reason, and after the month the software shows whether the changes made it better.
2. The plan in money. The demand plan is priced through each customer's prices and trade terms, giving net sales and margin by product, customer and month, and the signed plan becomes the budget's revenue, cost of goods and stock.
3. A supply plan the plants can run. Stock targets by product, a working calendar for every line and shift, and a production plan that respects line hours, speeds, changeovers, crews and materials, released as work orders for each product, line, day and shift. The purchase plan follows, within supplier lead times and order sizes.
4. A decision on record. Four sign-offs, for demand, supply, finance and the executive team, each showing who signed and when, and an executive review of fill rate, lost sales, stock and the financials, with actions, owners and due dates.

The locked forecast is what makes the cycle measurable. Every change a planner makes is recorded with its reason, and after the month the software shows whether the changes beat the statistical forecast, product by product and market by market. The meeting becomes a review of what worked.

A worked example on illustrative figures: next year's S&OP plan in money →

What we build for it

Examples from software we have already built:

• A monthly cycle over a rolling eighteen months, from the demand plan to the executive review, with every sign-off recorded
• Forecast accuracy by product and market, and the value the planners' changes added or lost
• Stock targets by product class, and a what-if showing the cash a lower target frees and the products it would put at risk
• A work-order plan for each product, line, day and shift, sequenced to keep changeovers short, with every order checked for crew, maintenance and materials
• A shift schedule across all lines, where a work order can be moved to another day, shift or line and the software checks the move
• Workforce planning: skills and crews per line, rosters, the gap between the people needed and the people available, and a hiring plan by skill and month
• A purchase plan within lead times, order sizes and supplier capacity, with a scorecard and a risk view for every supplier
• Allocation when supply is short, by customer priority, fair share or margin, and an answer on the spot when a customer asks how much can be delivered, and when
• Net sales and margin from the demand plan, feeding the budget and the rolling forecast

All the sample screens →

Screens

Where to start

It starts with a paid pilot, usually one category's demand plan on your own history, then a build at a fixed fee that takes in as much of the cycle as you need, and an annual subscription.

Prices →How an engagement runs →

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What changed against last year, and where did the growth and the drag come from? — Illustrative data.