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IFAC PapersOnLine 55-10 (2022) 79–84
Making
Making Decisions
Decisions in
in Highly
Highly Uncertain
Uncertain and
and Opportunistic
Opportunistic Environments:
Environments:
Making
TowardsDecisions
a in
Decision Highly
SupportUncertain
System and
for Opportunistic
Sales and Environments:
Operations Planning
Making
TowardsDecisions
a in
Decision Highly
SupportUncertain
System and
for Opportunistic
Sales and Environments:
Operations Planning
Towards
Making a Decision
Decisions in SupportUncertain
Highly System forandSales and Operations
Opportunistic Planning
Environments:
Towards a Decision Support System for Sales and Operations Planning
Towards a Decision
Danielle Support
Danielle FAKHRY*,
FAKHRY*, System
Raphaël
Raphaël for Sales
OGER*,
OGER*, and
Matthieu
Matthieu Operations
LAURAS*
LAURAS*
Danielle FAKHRY*, Raphaël OGER*, Matthieu LAURAS*
Planning
*Centre Danielle FAKHRY*,
Génie Industriel, IMT Raphaël
Mines Albi, OGER*, Matthieu
Université LAURAS*
de Toulouse, Albi, France
*Centre Génie
Génie Industriel,
*Centre Danielle FAKHRY*,
Industriel, IMT
IMT Mines
Raphaël
Mines Albi, Université
OGER*,
Albi, de
Matthieu
Université de Toulouse,
LAURAS*
Toulouse, Albi,
Albi, France
France
(e-mail: firstname.lastname@mines-albi.fr).
*Centre Génie Industriel, (e-mail: firstname.lastname@mines-albi.fr).
IMT Mines Albi, Université
(e-mail: firstname.lastname@mines-albi.fr). de Toulouse, Albi, France
*Centre Génie Industriel, (e-mail: IMT Mines Albi, Université de Toulouse, Albi, France
firstname.lastname@mines-albi.fr).
Abstract: Sales and Operations Planning
(e-mail: (S&OP) is a methodology used by most companies to make
firstname.lastname@mines-albi.fr).
Abstract:
Abstract: Sales
Sales andand Operations Planning (S&OP) is
is aa methodology used
used by by most companies to to make
planning decisions onOperations
a medium-term Planning
horizon. (S&OP) methodology
This methodology and associated most
tools companies
have been designed make
planning
Abstract:
planning decisions
Sales
decisions and on
on a
a medium-term
Operations
medium-term horizon.
Planning
horizon. (S&OP)This
This methodology
is a methodology
methodology and
and associated
used
associatedby tools
most
tools have been
companies
have been designed
to make
designed
for a relatively stable environment. However, this assumption is not relevant anymore, and practitioners
Abstract:
for
for aadifficulties
planning Salesstable
relatively
decisions
relatively and
stableonOperations
aenvironment.
medium-term
environment. Planning
However,
horizon.
However, (S&OP)this
this is a methodology
Thisassumption
methodology
assumption is not
is and used byanymore,
not relevant
associated
relevant most
tools companies
anymore, haveand
andbeen to make
practitioners
designed
practitioners
face to perform S&OP in highly uncertain and opportunistic environments. Therefore, this paper
planning
face
for a decisions
difficulties
relatively
face difficulties to
stableon
performa medium-term
S&OP
environment. in horizon.
highly
However, This
uncertain
this methodology
and opportunistic
assumption is and
not associated
environments.
relevant tools
anymore, have been
Therefore,
and designed
this
this paper
practitioners
proposes to pavetothe perform S&OP ina highly
way towards solution uncertain
to theseand opportunistic
difficulties, environments.
by introducing Therefore,framework
a conceptual paper
for
face adifficulties
proposes
proposes relatively
to
to pave
pave stable
tothe way
perform
the wayenvironment.
towards
towards However,
S&OP inaa highly
solution
solution to this
these
uncertain
to theseassumption
difficulties,
and is not
opportunistic
difficulties, by
by relevant
introducing anymore,
environments.
introducing and practitioners
aa conceptual
Therefore,
conceptual framework
this paper
framework
for designing a decision support system for performing S&OP in highly uncertain and opportunistic
face
for
proposesdifficulties
for designing
designingto paveaatodecision
perform
the S&OP inasystem
support
way towards
decision support highly
solution
system uncertain
for
for theseand
toperforming opportunistic
S&OP
difficulties,
S&OP by in environments.
highly
introducing uncertain Therefore,
and this paper
and opportunistic
a conceptual framework
environments. The paper concludes with a set ofperforming
research avenues inmake
to highly uncertain
it real. opportunistic
proposes
environments.
for designing
environments. to paveThe the
a decision
The wayconcludes
paper
paper towards
support asystem
concludes solution
with
with fortoof
aa set
set of these
performingdifficulties,
research
research S&OP by
avenues
avenues to introducing
inmake
to highly
make it
it real. a conceptual
uncertain
real. framework
and opportunistic
Keywords:
Copyright
for designing
environments. ©Sales a and
2022
The The operations
decision
paper Authors.
support
concludes planning,
This system
with S&OP,
is an aopenfor of
set accessdecision
performing
research support
under the
articleavenues
S&OP systems,
CC
inmake
to highly itrisk
BY-NC-ND management,
uncertain
real. license uncertainty,
and opportunistic
Keywords:
Keywords: Sales
Sales andand operations
operations planning,
planning, S&OP,
S&OP, decision
decision support
support systems,
systems, risk
risk management,
management, uncertainty,
uncertainty,
decision-making
environments. The process,
(https://creativecommons.org paper /licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
information
concludes withsystem,
aS&OP, MRP
set of II,
research supply chain
avenues management.
to management.
make itrisk real.management, uncertainty,
decision-making
Keywords:
decision-making Sales process,
and
process, information
operations
informationplanning,system,
system, MRP
MRP II,
II, supply
decision chain
support
supply chainsystems,
management.
Keywords: Sales and
decision-making operations
process, informationplanning,system,S&OP, MRP decision support
II, supply chainsystems,
management.risk management, uncertainty,
decision-making process, information system, MRP II, supply chain management.
chains in order to meet their needs, assuming that the future is
1. INTRODUCTION chains
chains inin order
order to
to meet their
their needs,
meet(Olhager, needs, assuming
assuming that the future is
1.
1. INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION known and controlled 2013; Pinon etthat al.,the future
2018). Theis
known
chains
known and
in
and controlled
order to
controlled meet (Olhager,
their
(Olhager, 2013;
needs,
2013; Pinon
assuming
Pinon et al.,
that
et al., 2018).
the future
2018). The
Theis
When an act of purchase of
1. INTRODUCTION a product takes place, it is designers of planning methodologies for supply chains, such
When
When an
an actact of purchase of a product takes place, it is chains
designers
known
designersin
andorder
of
of to meet
planning
controlled
planning their needs,
methodologies
(Olhager,
methodologies 2013;assuming
for
Pinon
for supplythat
et
supply al., the
chains,future
2018).
chains, such
The
suchis
conditioned by ofthepurchase of the
1. INTRODUCTION
capacity of a product
associated takes
supplyplace, chainit tois as ASCM, initially based their design on this assumption
known andofcontrolled (Olhager, 2013; Pinon etthis
al.,chains,
2018).suchThe
conditioned
When
conditioned an act by of
by thepurchase
the capacity of
capacity of the
the associated
a product
associated supply
takes
supplyplace, chain
chain to
it to as
is designers
as ASCM,
ASCM, initially
planningbased
initially based their
methodologies
their design
design for on
supply
on this assumption
assumption
make this product available to the consumer. This capacity to (Christopher and Holweg, 2011; Pinon et al., 2018). The same
When this
make
make an product
this
conditioned act
by of
product thepurchase
available
capacity to
available to a product
the
of the
the consumer.
associated
consumer. takes
This
supply
This place,
capacity
chain
capacity it tois designers
to ASCM,ofinitially
(Christopher
as
(Christopher planning
and Holweg,
and designers
Holweg, methodologies
based 2011;
theirPinon
2011; design
Pinon for
et supply
al.,
on
et for
al., this chains,
2018).
2018). The such
same
assumption
The these
same
make the product available includes production, transport and is as
true for the
ASCM, initially based
of software
their design on
digitizing
this assumption
conditioned
make the
make the by
product
thisproduct the capacity
available of
availableincludes
productavailable the associated
production,
to the consumer. supply
This transportchain
capacityand to is true
and (Christopher for the designers
and designers
Holweg, 2011; of software
Pinon et for for digitizing
al., 2018). The these these
same
storage activities carried outincludes
by the actorsproduction, transport
in the supply chain. is true for
planning
(Christopher
the
activities, who therefore
and designers
Holweg,
of software
2011;
based their digitizing
Pinon ettheir
software design
al., 2018). Thedesign
same
make the
storage
storage this productcarried
activities
product
activities available
carried
available out to
bythe
outincludes
by theconsumer.
the actors
actors in the
production,
in This
the capacity
supply
transport
supply chain. to is
and
chain. planning
true for
planning activities,
the
activities, who
who therefore
therefore based
of software
based for
their software
digitizing
software these
design
In order for products to reach consumers in the best possible on is
this hypothesis (Santa-Eulalia et al., 2011; Stadtler et al.,
true for the designers of software for digitizing these
make
In
In order
storage the product
for
order for(costs,products
activities
products available
carriedto reach
out
to reach includes
by consumers
the production,
actors
consumers in the transport
best
supply possibleand
chain. on this
this hypothesis (Santa-Eulalia et al., 2011; Stadtler et al.,
planning hypothesis
activities, (Santa-Eulalia
who therefore et
basedal., 2011;
their Stadtler
software et
design
conditions deadlines, quality, etc.), inboth thefrom
best thepossible
point on 2015).
planning activities, (Santa-Eulalia
who therefore et based
al.,
storage
conditions
In order
conditions activities
for (costs,
products
(costs, carried
deadlines,
to
deadlines, out
reach by the
quality, actors
consumers
quality, etc.),
etc.), in
both
boththe supply
from
best
from the chain.
point
possible
the point 2015).
on this hypothesis
2015). al., their
2011;software
Stadtlerdesign
et al.,
of view of industrial players and consumers, the supply chains on this hypothesis (Santa-Eulalia et al., 2011; Stadtler et al.,
In view
of orderof
view
conditions
of forindustrial
products
industrial
(costs, to reach
players
deadlines, and consumers etc.), in
consumers,
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the best the
supply possible
point 2015).
chains However, this assumption has been strongly challenged since
of theseofproducts mustplayers and
be perfectly consumers,
mastered the bysupply chains
the players However,
2015). this assumption has been strongly challenged since
conditions
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particularly challenged since
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who makeproducts
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control of supplymastered
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However,
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assumption
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challenged
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them
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with make them up.
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2016).
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2016). make them up. This control of supply chains is associated
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with the "Supply Chain Management" (SCM) domain (APICS, (economic
disruptions
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economy even
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2016).
One component of SCM is to anticipate future needs in order (Christopher and Holweg, 2017; Clifford Defee and Fugate,
One
One
2016). component of
component of SCM
SCM is is to
to anticipate
anticipate futurefuture needs
needs in in order shown how and
(Christopher
disruptions
order (Christopher sensitive
and the economy
anduncertainties,
Holweg,
Holweg, 2017;
2017; and
Clifford
evenClifford
in thelogistics
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aeronautical
Defee and are to
and Fugate,
Fugate,
sector
to have time to adapt these supply chains to ensure their ability 2010; Narasimhan and Talluri, 2009; Simangunsong et al.,
disruptions and
to have
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component to adapt
adapt
of SCM theseissupply
supply chains to
to anticipate to ensure
future theirinability
needs ability 2010;
order (Christopher Narasimhan anduncertainties,
and Talluri,
Holweg, Talluri,
2017;even
2009;in the
Clifford aeronautical
Simangunsong
Defee and Fugate, sector
et al.,
al.,
to
to meet time the needs these
expressed by thechainsassociated ensure their
markets. This is 2010; 2012; vanNarasimhan
(Christopher
der Vorstand
and
and Beulens,
Holweg, 2017;
2009;
2002).
Clifford
Simangunsong
The quality of
Defee and
et the
Fugate,
One
to meet
havecomponent
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adapt SCM
expressed
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by
supply anticipate
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markets.
ensure their in order
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ability is
is 2012;2012;
2010; van
vanthatder
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dersupply and and
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to meet"supply
called the needs chainexpressed
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Sáenz and Revilla, 2014).options
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These horizons and are also called network,
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right time.
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considered: The following
et al.,
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2015). planning
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and arealsogenerally
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long-term characterize
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necessary andto opportunities.
have the means to identify and
(Fleischmann
operational, tactical, et al., and2015). These This
strategic. horizons
paper are also on
focuses the characterize
called
network,
these risks and opportunities.
considered: tactical,
operational,
(Fleischmann
operational, short-term,
tactical, and
et al., and
medium-term (i.e., tactical),
2015). medium-term,
strategic.
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strategic.
and more
This paperand
horizons
paper
especially
focuses
are long-term
also
focuses
on “Sales
on the characterize
called
on the
and This first itsection
is necessary
these risks
of theand to opportunities.
paper have the means
introduced thetoresearch
identifyarea,and
(Fleischmann
medium-term
operational, et
(i.e.,al.,
tactical, 2015).
tactical),
and These
and
strategic. more horizons
Thisespecially
paper areon also
focuses“Sales called
on and
the This
This first section
first
characterize section
these of the
of
riskstheandpaper
paper introduced the
introduced
opportunities. the research
research area,area,
medium-term
Operations Planning” (i.e., tactical),
(S&OP),and more especially on
a component of “Sales
the well- and from SCM to S&OP, and highlighted the importance of
from SCM to S&OP, and highlighted the importance
of
the from This first
SCMsection of the and
totheS&OP, paper introducedthe the research area,
operational,
Operations
medium-term
Operations
known MRPPlanning”
tactical,
Planning”
(i.e., and
tactical),
II methodology
strategic.
(S&OP),
(S&OP),and a
more
(Arnold
This paper
component
especially
a component
et al., 2008).
focuses
of
on the
“Sales on
of the well- well-
and considering multitude highlighted
of decision importance options and of
medium-term II(i.e., tactical), and more especially on This first
considering
from SCM
considering section
tothe
the of
S&OP, the paper
multitude
and
multitude introduced
of
highlighted
of decision
decision the
the research
options
importance
options area,
and
of
and
known
Operations
known MRPPlanning”
MRP II methodology
methodology (S&OP), (Arnold
(Arnold et al., 2008).
a component
et al., 2008). of “Sales
the well- and uncertainties. The second section is a literature review
Operations Planning” (S&OP), a component of the well- from SCM tothe
uncertainties.
considering
uncertainties. S&OP,
The
The second
secondand section
multitude highlighted
section
of is a
decision
is a the importance
literature
options
literature reviewof
and
review
known
Until a MRP few yearsII methodology (Arnold etof
ago, the environment al.,these
2008). supply chains describing the fact that practitioners do not have appropriate
Until aa MRP
few years
years ago, the
the environment
environment of these supply chains considering
describing
chains uncertainties. the the
the andfact
The multitude
that practitioners
second section do
fact that of decision
do not
is not have options
a literature and
appropriate
review
Until
known few
was relatively ago,
II methodology
stable (market (Arnold etof
context, al.,these
2008). supply
political context, describing
methodology toolspractitioners
for making S&OP havedecisions
appropriate by
was
was relatively
Until relatively
a few yearsstablestable (market
ago, the(market
environment context,
context, political
of these context,
supplycontext,
political uncertainties.
methodology
chains describing
methodology the andThe
and second
tools
fact that
tools forsection
for makingdo
practitioners
making is S&OP
a literature
S&OP
not decisions
havedecisions review
appropriate by
by
environmental context, etc.) (Pinon et al., 2018). This was considering describing the
the multitude of decision options and
fact that practitioners do not have appropriate
Until a few
environmental
was relativelyyears ago,
context,
stable the environment
etc.)
(market (Pinon et
context, of these
al., supply
2018).
political Thischains
was
context, considering
methodology
was considering the
and multitude
tools for of
making decision
S&OP options
decisions and
by
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80 Danielle FAKHRY et al. / IFAC PapersOnLine 55-10 (2022) 79–84
the third section describes the contribution which is a first
answer to the research question: a conceptual framework
proposal aiming at guiding the design of a S&OP decision
support system compatible with highly uncertain and
opportunistic environments. This contribution is inspired from
Oger et al. (2021) and Oger (2019). While the mentioned
research work focused on long-term planning, this current
paper intends to translate its approach from long-term to
medium-term planning. Finally, the fourth section concludes
the paper by a synthesis and by suggesting avenues for future
research for extending this work and making the S&OP
decision support system real.
2. LITTERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Sales and operations planning
S&OP was first introduced by Ling and Goddard (1988) in the
book “Orchestrating success: Improve control of the business
with sales & operations planning”. There are several
definitions in the literature, but authors mostly define it as
business process that unifies plans from several departments
(e.g., sales, marketing, development, manufacturing, sourcing,
and financial) into one integrated plan (Grimson and Pyke,
2007; Olhager et al., 2001; Thomé et al., 2012). The term
Integrated Business Planning (IBP) also appeared during the
last decade. Some authors mention it as an updated version of
S&OP. But there is a lack of literature to really assess it
independently from S&OP (Oger, 2019; Pinon et al., 2018). It
is similar for the concept of Adaptive Sales and Operations
planning developed by the Demand Driven Institute (2018)
that still lacks detailed information to be assessed.
2.2 Lack of guidelines to consider the multitude of
uncertainties and decision options
When having a look at the S&OP process described in the
literature, we mainly find high-level description of the process
such as the one described in Figure 1. When diving into the
process explanations, authors such as Ling and Goddard
(1988) and Arnold et al. (2008) mention the importance of
considering uncertainties and decision options by making
alternative planning scenarios. However, Oger (2019)
formalized S&OP processes proposed by different authors,
using the BPMN standard, and it shows that the consideration
of the multitude of uncertainties and decision options is not
explicitly described as a component of the S&OP process. This
means that practitioners implementing S&OP do not have
clear guidelines for considering uncertainties and decision
options. This might lead to implementation difficulties; a
situation that has been observed among several companies
performing S&OP.
2.2 Lack of tools to consider the multitude of uncertainties and
decision options
Several authors concluded that the S&OP process cannot be
efficiently performed without an appropriate computerized
information system (Ivert and Jonsson, 2010; Kristensen and
Jonsson, 2018; Tuomikangas and Kaipia, 2014). In addition,
Oger (2019) identified 3 types of information system
mentioned in the literature to support the S&OP process (ERP,
APS, and spreadsheets). But the conclusion was that none of
them are appropriate for considering a multitude of
uncertainties and decision options. In a recent paper, Ivanov et
al. (2021) undertook a survey among researchers to understand
the current state of knowledge and to propose future research
opportunities for operations management scholars. The results
indicate that a link between S&OP and data science has been
pointed out by researchers and it also indicates that no
literature combining both has been found yet.
From the software editor perspective, a lot of commercial
software claiming being able to support the S&OP process
emerged during the past few years. However, even if it seems
some of them would enable companies to consider several
what-if scenarios, the available information found about them
seems to show that they would not make possible the
consideration of a multitude of uncertainties and decision
options.
To conclude about existing tools with the practitioners'
perspective, a study undertaken by the company West Monroe
(2021) has shown that spreadsheet is still the most frequently
used technology to perform S&OP today. But as mentioned by
Fleischmann and Koberstein (2015) the complexity and
frequency of planning updates can overload human planners if
they use only spreadsheets. A situation that can explain the
difficulties encountered by practitioners.
Figure 1: S&OP process by Coldrick et al. (2003))
2.3 Conclusion and problem statement
It has been explained that considering the multitude of
uncertainties and decision options is crucial for performing
S&OP nowadays. Unfortunately, existing solutions (both
methods and software) to support S&OP decision-making
have not been designed for such unstable and opportunistic
contexts and now have critical limitations, especially in terms
of robustness (Christopher and Holweg, 2011; Oger, 2019;
Pinon et al., 2018; Santa-Eulalia et al., 2011; Stadtler et al.,
2015). In practice, they are often purely deterministic and
limited to a pre-established configuration that is fixed in time.
This characteristic of the existing systems makes them
obsolete with respect to today's industrial reality. This causes
difficulties in ensuring the relevance of decisions taken and
thus difficulties in maintaining the performance of supply
chains when the future is not exactly what the companies
expected. In concrete terms, this leads to additional costs for
companies, a sharp drop in the level of service provided to
consumers, and even layoffs and bankruptcies.
The lack of detailed description of how to consider the
multitude of uncertainties and decision options in the S&OP
 Danielle FAKHRY et al. / IFAC PapersOnLine 55-10 (2022) 79–84
process might be due to the lack of appropriate tools to make
it possible. Therefore, the main research question this research
focuses on is the following: “how a solution could be designed
to enable practitioners making S&OP decisions by considering
the multitude of decision options and uncertainties?”. The
following section proposes a first answer to this question.
3. CONTRIBUTION
To start answering the research question described in the
previous section, this section proposes the conceptual
framework of a comprehensive decision support system (DSS)
that would enable practitioners to consider the multitude of
uncertainties and decision options while performing their
S&OP process. This contribution is inspired from Oger et al.
(2021) and Oger (2019) which had similar objectives but
focused on long-term planning. Therefore, the S&OP DSS
conceptual framework proposal intends to translate the
approach from long-term to medium-term planning.
Considering the vision of DSS inspired from Oger (2019), the
S&OP DSS is defined by the 4 following components
illustrated in Figure 2: its purpose, decision-making process,
information system, and people. The purpose is directly related
to the research question, it is to provide practitioner with a
comprehensive solution to help them in making S&OP
decisions while considering the multitude of uncertainties and
decision options. The main principles of the 3 other
components are described in the following subsections.
Figure 2: the 4 components of the proposed decision support system
for sales and operations planning (inspired from Oger (2019))
3.1 S&OP people
Regarding people, they are 3 categories that would be involved
in the S&OP DSS. The first one could be “information
providers” who would be in charge of providing the right
information that is required to perform the S&OP process.
Most departments of a company have a direct or indirect
81
relationship with the business performance considered during
the S&OP process (e.g., supply, procurement, manufacturing,
sales, marketing, product development, continuous
improvement, finance). Therefore, each department should
have its own information providers to feed the S&OP process
with the appropriate information. As mentioned by Oger et al.
(2019), it is crucial to gather companies’ departments around
a common vision because they all have a direct or indirect
impact on the business performance and are all correlated
when considering the company as a whole.
The second category could be “process managers” who would
be in charge of overseeing the S&OP process as well as
performing the analysis tasks leading to recommendations of
the decisions to make. This category could be divided into two
types of roles, a first one dedicated to the management of the
S&OP team, and a second one dedicated to the analysis part.
Finally, the third category could be “decision makers” who
would be responsible for making the final decisions based on
the recommendation from the S&OP managers.
3.2 S&OP process
The main principle of the S&OP process is to effectively guide
companies towards making their S&OP decisions in highly
uncertain and opportunistic environments. It implies guiding
companies in implementing an S&OP routine and in
performing this S&OP routine. Considering the limitations
regarding existing S&OP processes, two important elements to
design an appropriate S&OP process will be the following:
first, include all the necessary steps that described the
specificities of a process enabling to consider the multitude of
uncertainties and decision options. Second, formalize the
process in detail so that there are no ambiguities regarding how
to implement and perform it.
Figure 4 describes the S&OP DSS conceptual framework
proposal seen from the process viewpoint, including the
information system and people dimensions. This conceptual
framework is inspired from the approach that has been
proposed by Oger (2019) for making long-term supply chain
capacity planning decisions. Even if the proposal made by
Oger (2019) was focused on long-term decisions, most
components should be applicable for medium-term decisions.
Therefore, the proposed S&OP process high-level view is
composed of two phases, implementation and routine, and
each part is composed of some subparts providing its main
elements. The implementation part illustrates the people
dimension while the routine part illustrates the information
system dimension, however, in practice all those dimensions
should be interrelated at several stages to make the S&OP DSS
possible.
Regarding the implementation phase, its main objective is to
guide companies in configuring the S&OP process that
corresponds to their context, decisional vision, and objectives.
The first step is to define the decision-making perimeter. It
consists in deciding the type of uncertainties and types of
decisions to consider, as well as the key performance
indicators that will be required to support making decisions of
the chosen types. The second step is to define the data that will
be necessary to perform the S&OP routine. It consists in
82 Danielle FAKHRY et al. / IFAC PapersOnLine 55-10 (2022) 79–84

deciding the data sources, the data scope (especially in terms The third building block is the “what-if scenario generator and
of manufacturing perimeter and product portfolio), and the assessor”, a module that defines scenarios to assess and uses
data granularity (e.g., product families or product references). the assessment model generator to assess scenarios.
The third step is to define stakeholders involved in the S&OP
process. It consists in defining information providers, process Finally, the fourth building block is the “dashboard generator”,
managers, and decision makers, for which roles have been a module that aims at displaying scenario assessment results to
described in the previous subsection. the users, to analyze the outputs and prepare recommendations
for decision makers.
Regarding the routine phase, its main objective is to guide
companies in making the chosen types of decisions. The first
step is to prepare the decision-making meeting. It consists in
gathering data and preparing recommendations for decision
makers using the S&OP information system. The second step
is the final decision-making meeting to make decisions based
on the output of the previous step.
3.3 S&OP information system
Regarding information system, its main principle is to be a
computerized solution that enables to identify and assess the
multitude of scenarios of potential futures resulting from the
combination of the multitude of uncertainty sources and
decision options. The major mindset of this information
system is to automate as much analysis as possible to minimize
the time people have to spend on generating results, maximize
the number of considered uncertainties and decision options,
and increase the time people spend on analyzing the results for
preparing recommendations rather than producing the results.
Figure 3 describes the S&OP DSS conceptual framework
proposal seen from the information system viewpoint and
including parts of the process and people dimensions. This
illustration has directly been taken from Oger et al. (2021)
because we believe that a very similar information system
approach would be appropriate for supporting the S&OP
process. It is composed of two parts, on the left are given some
specific decision-making process stakeholder’s activities, and
on the right are described the main components of the
information system. The proposed information system would
be composed of 4 main building blocks described thereafter.
The first building block is the “supply web modeler”, a module Figure 3: S&OP DSS conceptual framework proposal seen from the
that structures the information collected from information information system viewpoint and including parts of the process
providers to make it available for further analysis. and people dimensions (Oger et al., 2021)
The second building block is the “assessment model 3.4 S&OP DSS conclusion
generator”, a module that generates a generic model to assess
the performance of the company that will be compatible with To conclude regarding this contribution section, the proposed
all what-if scenarios that can exist according to the considered S&OP DSS conceptual framework is a very high-level view
uncertainties and decision options. An assessment model describing the main component of what could become a
should be understood as an element to which we provide input S&OP, that provides practitioners with all material they need
parameters, and which provided key performance indicators as to implement and perform it, and compatible with making
a result. It is a key element towards the automation of the decisions in a highly uncertain and opportunistic environment.
information system, and what will make possible not to have
Considering (i) that this approach is highly inspired by the
to create a specific assessment model for each scenario. A
research work undertaken by Oger et al. (2021) and Oger
counterexample would be the use of spreadsheets as an
(2019) in the context of strategic supply chain capacity
assessment model. When companies that use spreadsheet to
planning, (ii) the theoretical and industrial results of the
perform their S&OP process want to analyze a new scenario
research work undertaken by Oger et al. (2021) and Oger
implying a structural modification such as a new product,
(2019), and the similarities of this planning context with
equipment, or supplier, they usually have to create a
S&OP, we believe that this approach and conceptual
completely new spreadsheet for this specific scenario, which
framework will enable to achieve the associated objectives.
is very time-consuming.
 Danielle FAKHRY et al. / IFAC PapersOnLine 55-10 (2022) 79–84
Figure 4: S&OP DSS conceptual framework proposal seen from the process viewpoint and including the information system and people
dimensions (inspired from Oger (2019))
4. CONCLUSIONS AND RESEARCH AVENUES
This paper started by introducing the importance of planning
and the difficulty for practitioners to perform sales and
operations planning (S&OP) in highly uncertain and
opportunistic environments. It has been identified that these
difficulties are mainly due to the fact that existing
methodologies and associated tools have been designed for
stable environments and are not appropriate to support
decisions in highly uncertain and opportunistic environments.
Therefore, this paper aims at paving the way towards a solution
to these difficulties faced by practitioners. It does it by making
a proposal of a conceptual framework for designing a S&OP
decision support system suitable for making decisions in
highly uncertain and opportunistic environments.
This contribution is a first building block, but there are still a
number of steps to undertake to make the proposed S&OP
decision support system real. Some avenues for future research
are described thereafter. A first avenue would be to propose a
detailed S&OP process involving the appropriate people and
information system. A S&OP process that would provide
practitioners with clear implementation and execution
guidelines. A second avenue would be to design and develop
the aforementioned S&OP information system that would be
the keystone of the S&OP DSS by making possible the
consideration of the multitude of uncertainties and decision
options. A third avenue would be to design and perform
additional industrial experiments to verify the effectiveness of
this DSS validated by Oger (2019), but for medium-term
horizons. Finally, the last avenue not to forget is to organize
the industrial transfer of the results to make it available to
practitioners.
5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors acknowledge the company Figeac Aero for the
funding of this research.
83
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