Sales and operations planning : design and implementation of S&OP process in a multinational company

Abstract

The company under scrutiny in this thesis is Aker Solutions Process Systems. As a part of the Aker Solutions group, Process Systems is a leading global supplier of processing equipment for oil, water and gas, operating worldwide. The company´s operational objective when implementing this process was to optimize the utilization of resources in it´s five different Business Units. The actions undertaken by the company to develop and implement a Sales and Operations Planning process were carefully record and posteriorly analysed. Sales and Operations Planning is a recognized cross-functional business process, designed to allow the company to synchronise supply and demand, bridge strategic planning with daily activities, and by reviewing performance measures, push continuous improvement, and cross-functional integration (Grimson and Pyke 2007; Dwyer 2000; Cox and Blackstone 2002, Gregory 1999). The evaluation of the maturity of the Sales and Operations Planning process in question is done according to two different models. The Grimson and Pyke Model described in the 2007 paper “Sales and Operations Planning: an Exploratory Study and Framework” and Lapide´s 2005 “Four-Stage S&OP Process Maturity Model”. There are three distinct evaluation periods, the first in an initial stage before the implementation of the S&OP process, one in half way through the implementation of the S&OP process and a final after the implementation of the S&OP process. The results suggest that theoretically by the third evaluation of the process the implementation was achieved and the process presented a level of maturity that should allow the management to use the results of the process to define resource optimization actions. However, the practical results of the process suggest that by the third evaluation, the process is not yet able to produce any useful information.