Sales and operations planning advocates get integrated software

Bruce Richardson, chief strategy officer at Infor, explains that it's all about quickly, accurately but also profitably adjusting operations to address shifting demand – particularly as the global economy improves. "For decades manufacturers have struggled with how to best align operations with demand, and today that challenge is greater than ever," explains Richardson. "What is needed is an entirely new way of thinking and acting on the problem. The true solution must align manufacturing, sales, finance and operations around the most profitable and achievable build plan," he adds. Richardson is branding the release as a 'new generation of S&OP' and, with a claim of "unprecedented capabilities for creating, managing and using electronic workflows that address every major stage in the S&OP process," it looks convincing. As ever, the point is to enable distributed – even global – teams to gain consensus and make better decisions faster. Richardson makes the point that this is the first dedicated S&OP solution to integrate 'what if' scenario building tools directly into decision-making workflows. That feature, he says, specifically allows teams to model potential changes based on up-to-date demand data, then choose the action that results in the highest potential increase in revenue or margin, before finalising and populating the changes automatically across a global supply chain. Long-term Infor software user Heineken sounds interested. Says Johan Smits, manager of the S&OP global rollout program at Heineken: "We have been working with Infor for many years on areas such as supply chain planning and factory scheduling, and we are looking forward with great interest to the new S&OP solution."