TABLE OF CONTENTS It is not a difficult guess that most people who read this book are probably operations people by trade. Materials planning and scheduling are included in this operations category. Many of you have been in production or production planning most of your life. Operations people have the sights, sounds, and smells of the factory in their blood. Making things from raw materials and doing it with speed and flexibility is an art well appreciated by these folks. That is what operations planning is all about, planning and executing plans to manufacture goods with cost-effectiveness, speed, and high customer satisfaction. Robust ERP process definitions in the operations planning space help to ensure predictable outcomes to schedules. Like so many topics in this book, operations planning is very supportive of a high-performance S&OP process. By now it should be obvious that this top-management planning process requires many people to work toward one goal, each carrying his or her own weight and delivering results. Many hands make many handshakes!
Operations planning starts with a demand plan input along with an understanding of the capacities and process expectations of the business. With this understanding comes a necessary definition of inventory strategy. This important process design is too often not given the credit it deserves. Inventory strategy is a key modeling element in the ERP business model. Inventory strategy used in this context is the positioning of inventory in the overall manufacturing, supply chain, and customer service processes.
In the business where I...
