OVERVIEW

As mentioned in an earlier chapter, although numerous good ERP business system tools are available on the market, surprisingly few do an especially good job with the S&OP process. Probably one of the reasons is that it is done so easily on a Lotus- or Excel-type spreadsheet today. Access is also available for the more advanced crowd when S&OP is done on simple, widely used tools. The real truth is that ERP software can sometimes get in the way. Good S&OP process requires nimble and flexible controls. If the product families need to be adjusted because of new pricing strategies, for example, a spreadsheet can be changed in 10 minutes, whereas special software may have to involve someone from IT and may take weeks if it gets done at all.

There is no reason to feel bad about utilizing spreadsheet technology for the S&OP process. I have worked with hundreds of clients over the years and have yet to have one completely manage their S&OP process on their ERP system. All have used spreadsheets. This is probably not going to change in the near future. Although some of the more sophisticated ERP software programs are getting much better and starting to cater to the needs of S&OP planning processes, most likely most planning processes will not be affected in the next few years. Tool changes happen when the desired state is much better and changing is less painful than staying the course with existing tools.

Spreadsheets just work too well...