Customer Reviews

Sales & Operations Planning -- The How-To Handbook

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I bought this book a few years ago and it was very helpfull to create an own approach for the business I'm in. It is my personal oppinion, that the topic about balancing demand and supply within a company is underestimated. There are many conflicts in companies but the one between Sales and Production is one of the most important to be solved. I'm coming from the market/strategy and operations side of a company and the book was very helpfull in explaining step-by-step the importance of a minimal planning tool based on stock, production quote and actual/ forecasted sales. Even though forecasting is always "wrong", there are certain things upstream the production line that must be planned in advance.

The author distinguishes between make-to-stock as well as make-to-order companies (or even a mix is possible although not described). Simple examples help to install a simple planning tool, bringing especially the Sales people on the round table is naturally up to you. Continuos improvement of a simple Sales & Operations Planning tool will not only improve scheduling at your operations but give your Sales people an advantage as well: first of all you can measure and improve your on-time-delivery performance and second your Sales people might even get the chance for a simple tool, quoting lead times better during the the request for quotes.

S&O Planing is especially a strong help, when your company has a robust job scheduling policy for triggering when orders are released to a line (CONWIP-release, material availability condition etc.). Forecasting methods are not described in this book and can be found mainly in Operations books (as factory physics etc.). Although it is not the aim of this book to provide information about forecasting and methods, I strongly recommend to spend some times about supply chain management and to learn about the basic flaws of forecasting as bullwhip-effects and other pitfals leading to a bad performance when applying S&O Planning. The farer your forecasts reach, the worse any prediction will be - so reducing operational and office lead-time goes hand in hand with any succesfull S&O Planning.

Best Regards,
Oliver

Expected a lot more strategic information out of this book.
The book does not have the 'exectuive level strategy' information that is expected from it.
Also, it is highly focused on Supply instead of an enterprise wide distribution to all functions.

I have read better Sales & Operations Planning books.

This is a simply, yet comprehensive guide to implementing a foundational lean leadership tool. Mr. Wallace takes you through the S&OP process, which aligns the organization on the demand, supply and operating plans. Mr. Wallace captures the essence of Materials Management as a core competency and illustrates how the entire organization plays a role in a lean environment. I highly recommend this series of books for lean practitioners, executives, and materials professionals. I have purchased several copies and distributed them through out our organization

Ronald Fardell
Corporate Lean Director
Textron Corporation

I found this book extremely helpful in implementing an S&OP process. The book was easy to read and understand. I ordered it for the whole team as a training tool. Each team member can relate to certain chapters but also understand their role in the bigger picture.
Great book!

This book provides a good base for a new people in the field. If you need advance information probably not..... but again is a good reference to create baseline.

Should be called "Sales & Operations Planning for Dummies". This book has all the basics to get you started.

It was truly a pleasure to have a person of Tom's experience, insight and humor anchor a recent webinar event for us entitled, "Myths, Misunderstandings and Misinformation About S&OP". Who better than a thought leader like Tom to burst of few the myths about S&OP that are still floating around the business community? Visit our website [...] to view a recording of Tom's recent presentation. Tom's words of wisdom are certain to help you get your company's S&OP process back on track.

Provides the necessary tools and information we need to move forward with our major project for our organization. Worthwhile!

Its an excellent manual giving the reader a step by step "cookbook" on the process. It has an excellent set of forms and checklists that should be usefull to anyone going thru the process of Sales & Operations Planning.

An excellent practical guide for setting up a Sales & Operations Planning process.