1. The process of developing the sales and operations plan is as important as the final numbers
because, as Richard Ling said, “S&OP is a people process supported by information.” The
2. Strategic planning involves the top managers in the organization. They make decisions that
impact actions potentially years in the future. Detailed planning happens at much lower levels
3. Level production plans are best suited to environments in which changing the production level is
almost impossible or extremely costly and cost of holding inventory is relatively low. Chase
4. Services do not have products or inventory, so they need to be concerned with matching capacity
with demand in each period. Services are effectively limited to following a form of chase
5. It is important to update the sales and operations plan regularly with a rolling time horizon
6. Superior S&OP can provide a firm with a competitive advantage because, done correctly, the
7. Two key advantages of coodinating a firm’s S&OP with key supply chain partners are 1) it helps
eliminate uncertainty by combining forecasts, and 2) the information flow between suppliers