S&OP Service Optimizer ( SO99+)

This business process is cyclical. It starts with a preparation stage where initial plans are calculated and is then followed by an S&OP meeting where executive management gathers to address key business issues such as:

• Are we in line with Budget?
• How can we improve the projected performance?
• Do we envisage bottlenecks (stock shortage, capacity constraints)?
• How can we remove bottlenecks and at what costs?

The key capabilities of the application are the modeling of alternative realistic scenarios,  the calculation speed in the simulation of such scenarios, and the integration with execution systems, which makes the implementation of the decisions taken in the S&OP meeting possible.

The ToolsGroup SO99+/S&OP application supports a standard S&OP process comprised of the following steps:

• Step 1 - Demand Side: The Sales organization reviews the calculated forecast and submits their adjustments of the commercial forecast for future months. The solution enables the implementation of a collaborative workflow and the building of multiple scenarios to be compared and evaluated in terms of stock and supply feasibility.
• Step 2 - Stock Projections: The application automatically calculates the effect of the submitted forecast on stock. The calculation takes into account the target stock level needed to deliver the desired service level to the market, the stock effectively available in the various locations of the network, the orders eventually issued and pending for receipt, and the customer orders pending for shipment.
• Step 3 - Supply Side: The Production and Purchasing organizations evaluate the variations to the supply plan triggered by Steps 1 and 2, and address the potential imbalances between the new requirements and the capacity to produce/deliver.

The solution provides a variety of tools to address such issues: increasing the capacity of resources in certain months, anticipating or delaying production, moving production to a different resource, and buying from external supplier(s). For each option, the application determines the consequences on potential lost sales, decrease of the projected stock below the target and safety levels, additional costs for increasing capacity, etc.

• Step 4 - S&OP Meeting: In the S&OP Meeting, stakeholders involved compare and evaluate the scenarios finally submitted and choose the one to be implemented.

For comparison, the solution provides for each scenario the projected P&L and KPIs related to the projection of stock, costs, revenues, profit and resources saturation.

The selection of the preferred scenario triggers the export of key data to SO99+ for execution.

SO99+/S&OP is part of the ToolsGroup suite of applications for Forecasting, Inventory Optimization, Planning, and Replenishment