Supply chain gurus have long proclaimed the virtue of aligning the company around “one number” – one forecast that seamlessly merges volume and mix. At J&J Consumer Products we have achieved strong performance and the necessary operational and financial alignment by actively managing the gap between volume and mix forecasts, without actually arriving at one number. We will discuss the theory and practice behind the processes that we use to achieve this alignment while accommodating forecasting at both the volume and mix levels, and describe the insights we are learning as we roll this out to our Consumer North America businesses.

As volatility, consumer demands and workplace environments change at an accelerated speed, Sustaining a Commitment to S&OP is critical to maintaining / improving your competitive advantage. No surprise, some of the critical success factors required to initially establish a robust S&OP Process need to be supercharged periodically to sustain excellence.

- A crisis

- Engagement and visible commitment from Company Leadership

- Dedicated S&OP Leader

- Active change management

Brian will share his experience and insights as Campbell’s revives S&OP for the 3rd time in his 19 years with the Company.

Kimberly-Clark has been on a multi-year journey to become a demand driven supply chain. As a result, we have been increasing our ability to see and respond to customer DC and store level data. Through recent technical improvements in data availability, KC and others in the retail supply chain have begun to exploring how to leverage store level data to better serve consumers. Our hypothesis is that by bringing specific replenishment recommendations to the supply chain, based on store level data, we can increase sales while reducing inventory handling and deployment costs.

Learn how Invacare radically improved its supply chain from Push to Pull by implementing and integrating new demand management systems/SIOP, advanced transportation management techniques and best in class distribution center operations.

The discussion will be around the importance of understanding your culture and how your culture can both advance and roadblock the S&OP process as a tool for improving customer service and reducing inventory. Some of the examples provided will be how we incorporated closing the gap between manufacturing and financial forecasts to dramatically reduce inventory levels and improve customer service. Another significant change was aligning the demand team to the supply team to ensure a one to one relationship between supply and demand.

After almost four years of economic gloom, the US economy is finally showing signs of life and the emerging market economies continue to outperform. However, with the whole euro project perilously close to collapse, and oil prices eye-wateringly high, the risks to the recovery are substantial.

Recent years have seen our growth as high as 25%, in an industry that’s been basically flat. Traditional business units have seen rampant new product launches, along with entry into two new business units, altogether making planning a critical piece to success, but a point of contention when it comes to quantifying. The key is connecting the front end of the business to the back, creating visibility to disconnects, and taking ownership to drive resolution.

Uncertainty in the market demand represents a big challenge for sales and operations planning. This holds especially true for the industries with long production cycle times and thus, long reaction times to changing customer demand. In this keynote, S&OP in uncertain environment is discussed in the context of forecasting, investment and capacity planning and cost flexibility. Practical examples from the semiconductor industry illustrate the impact of market uncertainty to S&OP and provide a glimpse of how to deal with it. The findings from the semiconductor industry will be generalized and can be applied to other industries.

There are many challenges facing Supply Chain Executives today: managing working capital, people, escalating transportation and raw material costs to name a few. At the same time it is our responsibility to focus on improving the overall effectiveness of the supply chain through such metrics as forecast accuracy, fill rate improvement and on time performance. In this session attendees will be given practical real life examples of how to turn complexity and challenges into opportunities for both short and long term wins by improving the overall supply chain effectiveness and performance of the company.

The focus of Sandeep’s short presentation is to share his story of the vision and how the separate functional areas of sales, supply and brand (marketing and product development) were brought together for collaboration and focus on business planning to optimize market penetration, revenue, service and inventory on a regular basis. He will share some of the highs and lows of the journey and some of the ongoing challenges. He hopes to learn how others have overcome some of these challenges.

The supply-chain is in constant whiplash mode from fear-based behaviors in the channel. We expedite and scramble to fill orders we “think” are coming. The orders don’t show up and we start burning down the inventory. The orders DO show up and we are caught off guard. Repeat cycle till exhaustion. At TE Connectivity we have found a Pull Replenishment model that has helped us meet customer expectations, reduce operating costs by $Ms, reduce inventory risk by $Ms, and improve lead-times. By focusing on Pull Replenishment, we’ve reduced traditional inventory micromanagement, yet improved turns. Additionally, we have created a bottoms-up movement where over 1,000 people are working across functional boundaries to transform our company. Let us share with you the “magic” we’ve experienced.

Driving improvements by integrating Marketing, Product Management, Sales, Supply Chain and Finance. Companies today face many challenges in trying to determine the demand from their customers and how to align their supply chain to best meet this demand. Many companies have implemented an S&OP process where Marketing, Product Management, Sales, Supply Chain and Finance participate in the process to gain better insights, but the results have been mixed. A true collaborative process with insights into the drivers of the forecast and the resulting impact on the supply chain are lacking due to variety of strategic, process, technology and data limitations. An S&OP Synchronization (Synch) approach effectively defines and integrates processes and roles & responsibilities to develop an operating plan that captures insights from multiple stakeholders. For example, Sales and Marketing insights on key accounts and product plans. By implementing an S&OP Synch approach companies can proactively resolve issues, make strategic business decisions and greatly increase the performance of their supply chain.

Dick was one of the creators of the S&OP process in the eighties. He wrote the first book on the subject, “Orchestrating Success”. He would like to give us all an update and challenge us all to do more collaboration throughout the S&OP process. He wants us all to think of where we can take this process in our companies.

Sales and Operations Planning system implementations are not easy, especially in complex global organizations with decentralized processes. In addition to the process complexity, systems are generally discrete and diversified, limiting data visibility and hence responsiveness. The benefits of an integrated system and process clearly add significant value to operational efficiency in the business. This presentation will focus on the S&OP transformation in a mid-size global firm starting from business case to execution and the challenges that had to be overcome in a situation of many different flavors of ERP systems, multiple data sources, siloed processes and inconsistent metrics. It will outline the real world challenges and outline a proposed method of prioritizing activities to make such implementations successful.

As the expectations of providing more with less continue to soar across business, the value of S&OP gets additional scrutiny from organizational stakeholders. In firms that have to provide consistent and timely deliverables to demonstrate the effectiveness of a well run S&OP process strong evidence of value must be demonstrated while overcoming the challenges of limited resources. This presentation will explore how Briggs Healthcare is doing more with less and creating a robust and predictable supply chain through its application of S&OP processes and tools.

At Owens Corning S&OP has been in use since 2004, sustaining & improving processes continued to be a big challenge after acquiring more businesses in 2007. The Global Supply Chain team has worked on this challenge, using lean fundamentals and tool set. Key actions include Lean Training for SC teams, Value Stream Mapping for S&OP Process (Regional /Global), Kaizen events for each sub process, Education and Training for Key stake holders (What’s in for me?), Standard formats. Standard calendar. Standard Data base (Key to success). For the last 6 months Owens Corning have been running Global S&OP (supported by 6 regional/business S&OP) successfully. Success of S&OP is being measured by speed of decision and by making and impacting business results (EBIT /Customer Service Impact) and improvement made in reducing cycle time.

Lean is not designed for cost reduction; in fact the purpose of a Lean system is to drive waste out of your processes. Plan For Every Part (PFEP) is the foundation of a Just In Time (JIT) approach to manage inventory. This presentation will discuss how Gates Corporation uses Lean Tools, and specifically apply these tools to the S&OP process to identify waste in the Supply Chain to reduce cycle times to align inventory to meet financial targets without sacrificing customer service. We will discuss ways to manage demand variation while still employing a pull system to reach inventory goals.

I will be discussing the challenges that WLS Lighting Systems faced due to the changing economy in 2008. How due to foresight and a strong foundation this business was able to not only thrive, but grow during the resent recession. With controlled and carefully planned growth WLS Lighting Systems is ready to face the economic boom that inevitably follows a downed economy and the challenges of the new “Energy Savings” movement in the twenty-first century.

Planning has long been segmented into different isolated activities that reflect organizational structures and functional goals, leading to long, ineffective, and inefficient planning cycles. For maximized value, sales and operations planning (S&OP) must be a truly cross-functional activity that can directly and simultaneously address both individual departmental goals and joint corporate objectives. In this recording, you will learn about the specific technology and process requirements to achieve a continuous and collaborative S&OP capability as it applies to the manufacturing industry in particular.

Launching and producing vehicles in Brasil presents many challenges given the custom regulations, barriers to entry, protectionist policies, the strong Real and port congestion. Additionally, the current booming market has caused capacity constraints for the local suppliers.   This presentation will explore these challenges and the strategies and solutions NC2 is employing to launch and run the business in a cost effective manner, maintaining supply to operations cost effectively while conserving work capital.

Enabling technologies have created exponential shifts in consumerism that have dramatically changed the business landscape in particular e-retailing. Successful e-retailers recognize that the customer comes first and great customer experiences do not happen. Further, they recognize that the creation of superior customer experiences requires the commitment, passion and resources of the entire organization. In this session, I will compare and contrast wholesale, retail and ecommerce S&OP’s and will share how the traditional S&OP methods of balancing supply and demand (S&OP) are turned on their heads in the direct to consumer channel.

Abstract coming soon.

In this presentation, Lora will present an overview of factors for S&OP success and organizational readiness. The discussion will include lessons learned, pitfalls and insights from Leaders. The session will end with recommendations to move to higher levels of maturity. In this session, you will learn: 10 Factors that matter, Issues that can derail progress, Recommendations to move forward