Over the years MBE has been involved in a number of assignments that have, to a greater or lesser extent, included Sales & Operations Planning.

Assignment 1         

This company, based in the UK, was basically buying and selling large equipment for the Far East.  They had, to a degree, lost control of their inventory.  The equipment they were buying had a fairly long lead time, and a long shipping time.  They knew their projected level of sales.  So, broadly speaking, they ordered the equipment, it was shipped at the end of the lead time, arrived in the UK, went into inventory, and after a period of time was sold and delivered to the customer.  The requirement was to better control the level of inventory in the UK warehouse.  Some S&OP processes were designed and implemented to provide the required level of control.

Assignment 2         

This site, in Eastern Europe, is part of a large USA corporation.  They had tried to implement S&OP, but it was not working.  MBE provided some initial education to the senior management team, who agreed to proceed with re-implementing the process.  They appointed an S&OP process owner, and MBE worked with him to design and develop the process, and provided some help to get it started.  It was a success, so was broadened to be group-wide, incorporating a plant in China, and 3 plants in USA.  Our sponsor moved to a senior role in Asia.  The whole company is now implementing a worldwide S&OP process, and we recently conducted some S&OP workshops in China, including people from India, to help to get this implementation process started.

Assignment 3

This was work on behalf of another major consultancy.  Their client was implementing S&OP worldwide, and they used MBE to provide the expert S&OP training to help them understand the generic process, and how it was being implemented for them.  This involved workshops in Basle (Switzerland), Houston, Los Angeles, Mobile (USA), Hong Kong, and Panyu (China).  An aspect of this assignment was to become familiar with the company process, which, of course, was developed from the generic 5 step S&OP process.

Assignment 4

This assignment was part of a broader brief for a small UK operation to improve its use of its globally mandated ERP system.  It was clear that the company had no medium term view of its business.  It had no picture of the expected demand levels going out 12 to 15 months.  A medium term S&OP process was developed, including the necessary spreadsheets, and a monthly management team meeting was put in place to review and agree the numbers, identify the issues, and agree on actions to be taken.  All the top management team participates in the monthly review.