8 Measures for Sales and Operations Planning in Turbulent Times, Part 6

Reading time ( words)

In this series, CEPHAS principal Fane Friberg highlights the interdependent elements of an effective S&OP process for leaders of supply chain management. While some companies tend to fall back on the status quo, Friberg highlights why it’s critical to actually increase the frequency of the S&OP rather than decrease the operations. He has reviewed the importance of staying committed, strategic imperatives, participation, technology, and rough-cut capacity planning. Today, he discusses suppliers.

Focus #6: Suppliers

As you work the S&OP process, a very key element is understanding if/how your suppliers will support your new plan. It is known that decentralized planning results in loss of efficiency and increased cost and lead-times. Work in full transparencies with your suppliers on a quantitative approach to determine short-term and long-term optimization.

Have the turbulent times caused by the pandemic caused your new plan to include some level of new product introduction (NPI)? Does your new normal require the supplier to pull in or push out their commodity to your organization? Do you have a systematic closed-loop process in place with your suppliers to run analytics as to how your new demand profile will be executed by the supplier? Does your plan create lumpy demand, and how might that affect the minimum/economic-order quantities?

Ensure that, in the new normal, the lead-times of your suppliers are loaded into your ERP system, and hold those suppliers accountable to those dates. If you have a supplier scorecard, continue to robustly use that tool; if you do not, make one. Also, if there are known restrictions identified from your supply partners, regardless of where that limitation is within the indented bill of materials, your overall plan must reflect this as part of the S&OP alliance.

Fane Friberg is principal of CEPHAS.

03/21/2023 | Dan Beaulieu, D.B. Management Group

I have always felt that automation has the potential to make a big difference in our PCB industry, especially domestically, where labor is at premium. For the past year, I have been looking for the story of how automation can and will make a significant difference in established PCB shops. I was fortunate enough to find that story in Multicircuits, located in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Only a few short years ago, this company was considered a “plain vanilla” PCB fabricator holding its own in our industry; now it has suddenly assumed a true leadership position in the industry in terms of capability, technology, operations, and profitability.

03/08/2023 | Nolan Johnson, I-Connect007

In this conversation with Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, we spoke with John Hendrickson, engineering director; Frank Harrill, vice president of security; and Jessi Hall, senior director of vertical engineering. We wanted to learn more about the best practices they developed while specifying, selecting, and preparing to install an entire facility’s worth of equipment all at the same time.

02/27/2023 | Pete Starkey, I-Connect007

The EIPC Winter Conference returned to the Metropolis of Lyon in eastern France this month. In 2018, the venue was Villeurbanne in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. Five years later the setting was the Groupama Stadium in Décines-Charpieu, and leaders of the European printed circuit community gathered in expectation of a spectacular programme of 16 presentations, a visit to a nuclear power station, and an invaluable networking opportunity. They weren’t disappointed.