Successful industrial manufacturers utilize a best practice sales and operation planning (S&OP) process to align supply chain and business strategies. As customer demand volatility and product choice increase, S&OP is becoming an essential business process in the highly-competitive industrial manufacturing market.

AMR Research predicts that by 2009, 75 percent of the Global 2000 manufacturing companies will have implemented a comprehensive S&OP process. Today, many companies rely on spreadsheets as the technology to support S&OP. Although convenient, this strategy lends itself to multiple versions of the verifiable data and is rarely accurate or effective over the long-term.

A well-designed and effectively deployed S&OP process should be the cornerstone between business strategy and tactical, as well as operational, deployment of that strategy throughout the supply chain, according to AMR Research. A solid S&OP process provides improved alignment and information transparency for customers, suppliers and manufacturers. As competitive pressures in industrial manufacturing become stronger, supply chain complexity increases, driving the need for a best practice S&OP process and the technology to support it.

In the near future, QAD will be introducing solutions to support best practice sales and operations planning. By proactively balancing aggregate supply, demand and financial plans, QAD S&OP will help improve the following:

• Data Management and Quality
• Workflow Management and Collaboration
• Supply and Demand Balancing
• Multilevel and Multidimensional Forecasting
• One-Number Planning
• Financial Monitoring and Reporting

QAD S&OP will also dramatically improve visibility to:

• Rough cut capacity planning
• On-goal / on-plan status
• Projected revenue, cost and margin
• Configurable key performance indicators
• New product plans
• Economic and competitor events
• Strategic initiative status

For more information on QAD's plans for Sales and Operations Planning, please contact Rob Cramer at rac@qad.com. For more information on QAD solutions for the Industrial Manufacturing market, please contact Dave Parrish at djp@qad.com.