The technique of developing the tactical plans that provide ability to the management to strategically explicit its business to achieve the competitive advantage on a regular basis by amalgamating client-centralized marketing ideas for new and existing commodities with the administration of the supply chain is said to be S& OP.

All the plans for the business (sales, marketing, development, manufacturing, sourcing and financial)

are brought together into one unified set of plans by this process. It is performed and reviewed once in a month by the management at the product family (aggregate) level.

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S&OP establishes a midrange plan to operations using the input from the top management. 

The best practices to forward S&OP performance at our organization include:     

         • Encourage the senior management and involve them in the S&OP process despite knowing who has the ownership.

         • Enhancing forecasting capabilities. 

         • Increase the involvement with the supply chain and operations management professionals these professionals are likely to discern the importance of S&OP.

The major goals of the S&OP process is       

         • To develop a practical plan.

         • Comparing the supply with the demand.

         • Persuade the most profitable plan. 

         • Increase the opportunities and reduce the risks.

S&OP processes comprised of gathering and reviewing data, planning supply and demand, conducting meetings with the partners and executives and more. These processes usually happen on monthly basis.

Sales and Operation Planning is the heart of the operations where discordant functional areas convoke, team members achieve conceal & corporate policies and operational policies are serviceable.

Each S&OP process is different but when the important roles are performed properly the process is successful. The S&OP team should be able to take ownership of the demand and make the remaining part of the S&OP cycle a success. Most importantly, the team should actively communicate the risks within the demand plan and provide the supply management team time to mitigate those risks.

Source: http://www.apics.org/docs/default-source/industry-content/2012-sales-and-operations-planning.pdf

Source: http://www.apics.org/docs/default-source/shopapics/s-op_folio.pdf