Evaluation of the maturity of the S&OP process for a written materials company: a case study

Abstract

This paper aims to evaluate the maturity stage of S&OP process in a written materials company to identify main deficiencies of this process and to suggest actions to its evolution. Three models were selected to do this task: two qualitative models, proposed by and a quantitative one. There were significantly differences between results from the quantitative and the qualitative models, especially because the quantitative model used generic reference value for the metrics, without considering industry in which the company is located, the number of clients as well as the characteristics of its products and processes. For the demand planning accuracy metric, it is proposed a method using an average weighted of product families’ accuracy, defining the weights by an ABC classification based on families’ revenues. On the practical field, the main difficult in S&OP process analyzed was the interface between demand and supply, especially because the company has a functional structure focused on meeting demand. The difficult of this integration is, in fact, the main purpose of S&OP. Therefore, the company expects to reduce the conflicts in this interface in the coming years.

Keywords:
S&OP; Maturity model; Sales management; Operations management; Process management