Global S&OP: Parsing the Process

The growth in globalization and consumerism has rendered the use of a single, simple S&OP process unwieldy and cumbersome for many companies. Often the process needs to be divided up or parsed along a variety of dimensions, and then consolidated in order to harmonize worldwide supply, especially when regions are contending for limited product supply. This column reports on research conducted at MIT for a medical devices company. The research was about when and how to parse a Global S&OP process into multiple processes. In this column, we recommend the criteria to use to break up the process for each of four supply-based scenarios.