Simpler, Better, and Needed More than Ever

Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) has become perhaps the most significant innovation of this generation for forecast process improvement, bringing demand people and supply people together in a structured series of steps. But the effective uses of S&OP are not widely understood, and while practitioners need to hear what is working, it is imperative for them to learn what is not working, and why, and how companies are correcting the problems. Bob Stahl lays the foundation for understanding what the executive component of S&OP is – and where it fits in the organizational hierarchy. Copyright International Institute of Forecasters, 2009