New problem with sales, inventories, and operations planning in a supply chain environment

The highest level of planning and control system is necessary, because production and logistics systems are not so flexible to follow, from day to day, sales evolutions. The companies are therefore held to standardize the good practices concerning the elaboration of their Sales, Inventories and Operations Planning (SIOP). The SIOP makes it possible to implement the strategic objectives defined by Top Management at the time of the Business Plan. It is the link between sales and manufacturing planning. The objectives of each of those depend on the specificity of their trade: the Sales Department will go for a maximum sales whereas Production will endeavor to keep industrial cost prices as low as possible while the Finance Department will try to optimize the use of available funds. There are several tools for this optimization: Graphical method and linear programming. Today, the economic context requires robust optimization.