Background

Our client had experienced significant growth, particularly through the establishment of further off-shore production capability. Additionally, the local manufacturing operation was experiencing increased competitive pressures. Existing management and control processes required refreshing and consolidation in order to maintain local competitiveness and manage longer lead times inherent in off-shore production.

Challenge

• Different manufacturing sites within the business had different levels of planning and process maturity.
• The business had mixed planning capabilities using a combination of spread sheet systems and dedicated tools for forecasting and operational management.
• The management processes used to coordinate planning and operations were not fully integrated and aligned across all functions of the organisation.

Approach

A project was commissioned aimed at designing an organisation-wide Sales and Operations Planning process.

A comprehensive gap analysis of existing planning activity was conducted comparing the organisations' current activities against industry best practice.

• This analysis was then overlaid with the clients' unique requirements across the following dimensions:
  • At Manufacturing site level
  • At Division level
  • At Group Functional Level (eg Logistics, Planning)
• Key business representatives were interviewed at executive and operational levels to identify unique requirements and blockers to success.
• Meeting structures, reporting, inputs and outputs were determined.
• Executive workshops were conducted to review and educate on the S&OP design outcomes.

Outcome

A detailed S&OP process was designed taking in to account the unique requirements of the retail group:

• Meetings were tailored around the specific needs of various functional groups, e.g. Sales, Production.
• Broad measures were defined and agreed which provide the ability to report consistently across manufacturing sites and group.
• A dedicated S&OP Manager was recommended in order to better coordinate information flows across the various manufacturing sites and business functions.
• Meeting agendas including participants, meeting inputs and meeting outputs were agreed.
• A two-stage implementation plan was proposed based on risk, benefit, implementation timeframe and on-going sustainability considerations.