The Sales and Operations Plan function

The Sales and Operations Plan function permits estimating the quantity and timing of production for the intermediate future (from 3 to 18 months ahead). Basically this function computes the monthly inventories and the monthly workloads (for critical production resources) associated to aggregate production plans defined to satisfy aggregate sales forecasts. The issue considered by this function is the synchronization of fluctuating sate (with seasonal phenomena for example) and of fluctuating production capacity (due to breakdowns, maintenance or holidays).

In such a situation, the production plan can include production fluctuations (according to the sales fluctuations) or anticipated production during low sales periods, leading to the building up of inventory, which is sold during the high sales periods.

This function permits adjusting the production plans manually until the projected inventory and workloads are satisfactory.

When these aggregate production plans are set, they can be converted into individual finished product requirements, used in the corresponding master schedules.