Sales and operations planning : learnings from 15 Brazilian companies

Goal: The goal of this paper is to investigate 15 Brazilian companies, which execute S&OP cycles periodically, in order to characterize the processes implemented and discuss challenges and improvement opportunities.Design / Methodology / Approach: Initially, a multiple-case study approach is applied embracing 15 Brazilian companies. Then, a survey is conducted in the same organizations to deepen the investigation. Two recognized S&OP frameworks from the literature are used to structure the research.Results: Some of the main research findings include: some companies consider “Data Gathering” a normal task and no longer a S&OP cycle step; some organizations include a new step one named “Portfolio Management”, preceding “Demand Planning” to leverage step two’s outcomes; there are improvement opportunities identified in “Pre-meeting” and “Executive Meeting” steps regarding capacity to simulate different scenarios from a financial perspective; and most of the studied companies do not adopt a S&OP software facing limitations to manage information and perform what-if analysis.Limitations of the investigation: Only companies located in Brazil are investigated.Practical implications: The study provides useful information for practitioners on the characterization of the S&OP process, implementation challenges, and improvement opportunities.Originality / Value: The paper applies different research methods (multiple-case study and survey) and two recognized frameworks from the literature in the study of the S&OP process performed by 15 companies, providing a broad characterization of the processes implemented and valuable findings about challenges and improvement opportunities. Although all the researched companies are Brazilian, evidences indicate the results are generalizable

Future of supply chain planning: Closing the gaps between practice and promise

The purpose is to develop a research agenda for supply chain planning (SCP) relevant to practice. We critically evaluate academic literature on SCP in order to understand how problems are addressed in their particular context, what the outcomes are, and the mechanisms producing the observed outcomes. Four categories of SCP are studied: sales and operations planning (S&OP), supply chain master planning, supply chain materials management, and collaborative materials management. We introduce the concept of enabling mechanisms to identify specific innovations in materials management and production management that can facilitate the future improvement of SCP. The critical evaluation of current SCP theory presents very limited results that are of practical relevance. SCP is not presented as an intervention and the results are not in a form that is actionable for practitioners. The body of literature is almost absent in addressing problems according to context, it presents limited evidence of intended outcomes, and it fails to identify unintended outcomes. As a consequence, research is unable to bolster theoretical understandings of how outcomes – both intended and unintended – are achieved. In our forward-looking research agenda we leverage our understanding of the enabling mechanisms in order to propose research to make mature S&OP and novel types of SCP implementable. The paper is an example of a structured approach to developing a research agenda that is relevant to practice and can be used more widely in logistics and supply chain management. This paper presents a research agenda to close the gap between practice and promise in SCP. We operationalize what constitutes practical relevance for an established field of research

Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP): A Group Effectiveness Approach

Sales and Operations planning (S&OP) is an approach meant to help firms achieve demand and supply balance, yet experts agree that it has fallen short on delivering anticipated benefits. Carried out by cross-functional teams, S&OP entails getting people from different thought worlds, especially sales, aligned around common goals. Despite ample practitioner guidance, there is a dearth of scholarly research indicating pathways to success. Using a group effectiveness theoretical framework, this study identifies both internal team factors and contextual influencers that are predictors of S&OP effectiveness. Perspectives were captured from S&OP team members across a wide cross-section of industries representing sales and operations functions using a survey-based approach. Results indicate that internal team factors of social cohesion and decision making autonomy are key drivers of collaboration. Similarly, information quality, procedural quality, and team-based rewards/incentives serve as contextual influencers of collaboration. In turn, collaboration serves as a central mediator, partially linking antecedents to S&OP effectiveness and also serving as a direct influencer of success. Moreover, having joint rewards and incentives, which is often not the case among S&OP teams, is the greatest overall driver of S&OP effectiveness. Overall, these findings provide empirically-based guidance for managers seeking to determine which factors are most important for S&OP team success. Additionally, grounding S&OP in principles of group effectiveness theory will also aid future academic study in efforts to help firms achieve greater demand and supply balance

Integração de informações e gestão de processos: um estudo de caso em uma distribuidora farmacêutica

O avanço da tecnologia na distribuição logística, trouxe a aplicação de novas plataformas e sistemas na gestão da cadeia logística, transformando a maneira como os processos de logística na área de distribuição são desempenhados. Dessa forma, a presente trabalho de conclusão de curso apresenta um estudo de caso que busca rever a gestão de processos dentro da distribuição logística farmacêutica e mapear como ocorreu o procedimento de digitalização dos processos logísticos em uma distribuidora farmacêutica situada em João Pessoa- PB. Para isso, o trabalho busca entender quais processos foram digitalizados e a maneira com isso modificou o procedimento operacional padrão da organização, analisando por meio das respostas de um questionário dos gerentes da área de Transporte e S&OP quais foram as vantagens obtidas pela digitalização de processos.Com base nos resultados obtidos, conclui-se que, diante do que foi relatado o procedimento de digitalização de processos trouxe mais integração e automatização dos processos logísticos, melhorando a capacidade da organização em tomadas de decisão integradas entre os setores da organização e manter um padrão entre seus processos logísticos

Sales and Operations Planning:The effect of coordination mechanisms on supply chain performance

Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) is a means of facilitating cross-functional coordination, such as across the marketing-operations interface, but adopters of S&OP have not all benefited from S&OP to the same extent. This paper investigates the effect of S&OP on supply chain performance using the perspective of coordination and contingency theories. A structural equation model was developed in which six S&OP coordination mechanisms were hypothesized to contribute to improved supply chain performance. The model was tested using a global survey of 568 experienced S&OP practitioners. Our results indicate that Strategic Alignment and Information Acquisition/Processing are the mechanisms that most significantly enable superior S&OP outcomes. However, we find that a highly formalized S&OP Procedure inhibits supply chain performance. Furthermore, using a contingency theory perspective, increasing firm size and increasing experience in S&OP amplify the negative effect of a standardized S&OP Procedure upon supply chain performance. Our results suggest that organizational bricolage may be a coordinating mechanism of effective S&OP programs and that managers should empower ambidextrous S&OP teams to maintain balance using self-governing event-driven processes. This paper makes a novel contribution to the S&OP literature by providing evidence of a theoretical construct (organizational bricolage), which may trigger a re-evaluation of the efficacy of prescriptive S&OP procedures that have been advocated by some researchers and practitioners

Industry 4.0: a bibliometric review of its managerial intellectual structure and potential evolution in the service industries

The “industry 4.0” phenomenon is expected to influence almost every aspect of business value chains, and hence it has been increasingly analyzed by management scholars. However, the overarching intellectual structure emerging from this new stream of literature has not yet been synthesized in a framework nor critically discussed. Furthermore, despite being part of the rhetoric in several recent industrial governmental plans, industry 4.0 in service sectors has not been systematically reviewed to date. By leveraging a systematic quantitative literature review, a data-driven approach and a quantitative methodology—embedding both bibliographic coupling and network analysis techniques—this study provides a clear visualization of the emerging intellectual structure of industry 4.0 in management studies. We also develop a framework based on the most recurrent themes emerging from the results of bibliometric and network analyses—the latter could be used by management scholars to understand studies surrounding industry 4.0. As service businesses can create and capture value generated through the 4th Industrial Revolution as well as manufacturing firms, we suggest that scholarly attention should also be directed toward the service industries and provide a research agenda

Education Management Organizations\u27 Collaborative Leadership Practices for Low-Performing Urban Charter Schools

Educators have regarded building leader-member relationships using collaboration as a fundamental component to successfully improve students\u27 academic achievement. Ineffective collaborative leadership practices may lead to achievement deficits particularly for many urban charter schools operated by educational management organizations. The purpose of this case study was to explore collaborative leadership practices educational management organization leaders need to assist school principals in low-performing K-12 urban charter schools to improve academic achievement. Guided by Fiedler\u27s contingency theory, this case study explored the successful collaborative leadership practices of educational management organization leaders and school principals in a midwestern urban charter school to improve academic achievement. Data collection included semistructured interviews with 3 educational management organization leaders and 5 urban charter school principals and reviewing archival company documents. Data analysis involved coding and theming significant phrases and emerging patterns related to successful collaborative leadership practices until reaching data saturation. The emerging themes revealed included collaborative practices; academic achievement; implementation to change; school improvement; professional development; compliance and regulations; organizational culture, and community involvement. Findings from this case study resonated with Fiedler\u27s contingency theory and indicated the significance of collaborative leadership practices. A significant positive social change implication is that the awareness of collaborative leadership practices in low-performing K-12 urban charter schools can enhance student academic achievement

A planning practitioner’s reflections on managing complex scheduling challenges

This work represents the reflection-on-action of a planning practitioner from the field of aircraft manufacturing who manages between 40 and 50 planners at any one time and who has influenced the development of many others over the last twenty years. This is an industry of considerable scale and complexity that requires an appropriately positioned planning and scheduling response. From the perspective of the head of planning (Wings), the key impact on the practice reflected upon here is on the integrated positioning of planning into a critical community (a centre of competence), where the roles and the interaction provide an appreciative framework for planners to give of their best. The four core themes explored in this work start with the way of working embedded in an integrated planning approach to enable a route into the wider organisation and how the tasks become clarified in this setting in terms of scope; how a cross-team supportive approach is established; how role gaps are anticipated; and how retaining and using experience is thought about, while reinforcing appreciation through continuous improvement activity and professionally maintaining the pool of planners. An integrated approach then supports the spread, sharing, development, accessibility and application of knowledge in more resourceful and relevant ways than if the approach was task-orientated, boundaried and transactional. This is illustrated by examples of why learning curves matter and how they may be interpreted for impact, and why using governance templates to clearly capture planning outcomes is so important. Examples of tools are given that both support and emerge from an integrated planning approach: cardinal rules, red reports, plan-on-a-page and sign-off packs that can secure a professional planning input. All of the above are positioned in an understanding of how complexity builds up during the phases of a major aircraft development programme, before maturing to the series build phase that follows a launch. This critical engagement places these themes in context within both practice and related literature. These reflections have the potential to enrich the body of knowledge in this field, as the role perspectives currently in the public domain are either based on only one or two launch cycles, at best, or have the limitation of only part of the five to seven years it takes to deliver a new aeroplane, from drawing board to market. This reflection-on–action is based on multiple cycles, giving a wider perspective over a longer time. I propose that this exploration into complex planning has the potential to effect significant change in the professional role of a planning practitioner. It does so through recontextualising the planner’s role as both facilitating articulation between different stakeholders and developing a range of practical products and tools that structure and delineate how this re-conception of the planning role operates in complex environments. Of key importance to this is the value of ongoing critical reflection of the role as a form of leadership, based on indicators of trust being maintained

Balancing Demand and Supply in Complex Manufacturing Operations: Tactical-Level Planning Processes

By balancing medium-term demand and supply, tactical planning enables manufacturing firms to realize strategic, long-term business objectives. However, such balancing in engineer-to-order (ETO) and configured-to-order (CTO) operations, due to the constant pressure of substantial complexity (e.g., volatility, uncertainty, and ambiguity), induces frequent swings between over- and undercapacity and thus considerable financial losses. Manufacturers respond to such complexity by using planning processes that address the business’s needs and risks at various medium-term horizons, ranging from 3 months to 3 years. Because the importance of decision-making increases exponentially as the horizon shrinks, understanding the interaction between complexity and demand-supply balancing requires extending findings reported in the literature on operations and supply chain planning and control. Therefore, this thesis addresses complexity’s impact on planning medium-term demand-supply balancing on three horizons: the strategic– tactical interface, the tactical level, and the tactical–operational interface.To explore complexity’s impact on demand–supply balancing in planning processes, the thesis draws on five studies, the first two of which addressed customer order fulfillment in ETO operations. Whereas Study I, an in-depth single-case study, examined relevant tactical-level decisions, planning activities, and their interface with the complexity affecting demand–supply balancing at the strategic–tactical interface, Study II, an in-depth multiple-case study, revealed the cross-functional mechanisms of integration affecting those decisions and activities and their impact on complexity. Next, Study III, also an in-depth multiple-case study, investigated areas of uncertainty, information-processing needs (IPNs), and information-processing mechanisms (IPMs) within sales and operations planning in ETO operations. By contrast, Studies IV and V addressed material delivery schedules (MDSs) in CTO operations; whereas Study IV, another in-depth multiple-case study, identified complexity interactions causing MDS instability at the tactical–operational interface, Study V, a case study, quantitatively explained how several factors affect MDS instability.Compiling six papers based on those five studies, the thesis contributes to theory and practice by extending knowledge about relationships between complexity and demand–supply balancing within a medium-term horizon. Its theoretical contributions, in building upon and supporting the limited knowledge on tactical planning in complex manufacturing operations, consist of a detailed tactical-level planning framework, identifying IPNs generated by uncertainty, pinpointing causal and moderating factors of MDS instability, and balancing complexity-reducing and complexity-absorbing strategies, cross-functional integrative mechanisms, IPMs, and dimensions of planning process quality. Meanwhile, its practical contributions consist of concise yet holistic descriptions of relationships between complexity in context and in demand– supply balancing. Manufacturers can readily capitalize on those descriptions to develop and implement context-appropriate tactical-level planning processes that enable efficient, informed, and effective decision-making

Método de elaboração de planos agregados de produção baseado na teoria das restrições

A elaboração de planos agregados de produção tem sido tratada através de dois enfoques: um enfoque qualitativo onde ele é parte constituinte do processo S&OP (Planejamento de Vendas e Operações – Sales and Operations Planning), e um enfoque quantitativo onde se procura modelar e resolver o problema através de uma abordagem numérica. Na prática ambos os enfoques não têm sido adotados pelas empresas, seja pela falta de um passo-a-passo estruturado (enfoque qualitativo), seja pelo custo da solução (enfoque quantitativo). Neste contexto, neste trabalho um método alternativo para elaboração de planos agregados de produção é apresentado. Este método foi desenvolvido através da Design Science Research (DSR), baseado na aplicação da Teoria das Restrições (TOC – Theory of Constraints), visando garantir sua integração com o processo de S&OP. O método desenvolvido foi aplicado de forma bem-sucedida em um caso real, onde foram evidenciadas melhoras na compatibilização entre demanda e capacidade.Aggregate Production Planning has been treated with two different approaches: a qualitative approach where it belongs to S&OP (Sales and Operations Planning), and a quantitative approach where the objective is to model and solve the problem through a numerical method. Actually, both approaches haven’t been adopted by the companies, due to a lack of a step-by-step procedure (qualitative approach), or due to the high cost associated to the solution (quantitative approach). In this context, an alternative method for developing aggregate production plans is presented in this research. This method was developed through Design Science Research (DSR), based on the use of Theory of Constraints (TOC), aiming to guarantee its integration with the S&OP process. The method was succesfully applied on a real situation, where improvements could be verified in the compatibility between demand and capacity