Sales and Operations Planning for Equipment Manufacturers
Gain Full Business Alignment—from C Suite to Shop Floor
Drive True Execution to Stronger Financial Outcomes
If your equipment manufacturing operation is typical, you lack accuracy in demand forecasting. Which means you don’t have a good picture about how it impacts your projects or the downstream functions that depend on it.
Or perhaps your existing S&OP process generates usable forecasting data, but you struggle translating that consensus forecast into actionable results.
While the causes of untenable S&OP processes and results are numerous, the outcomes are always predictable. You fail to satisfy customer requirements, realize new efficiencies, meet revenue goals, and increase margins.
The solution?
An S&OP Process Built for the Unique Challenges of Equipment Manufacturers
At MCA Connect, we offer a Sales and Operations Planning Service for Equipment Manufacturers. Our service applies deep industry knowledge to enable cross-functional alignment and execution across your organization to meet your revenue, profitability, and customer service objectives.
We partner closely with you to ensure the implementation and continuous execution of the right S&OP best practices and procedures. Ones that are unique to your forecasting, project-centric production processes (CTO, MTO, MTS, and/or Lean), and supply chain challenges.
Our equipment manufacturing industry experts work with you to implement a continuous and forward-looking S&OP process that addresses organizational risks to maximize operational success.
We provide:
- Best practices leveraged in a repeatably successful process design
- Assistance in establishing the required process expectations and ownership
- Mentorship of S&OP process throughputs and outputs
- Change management to assist department leaders in breaking down internal barriers and fostering engagement through deployment exercises to ensure proper adoption of the reimagined S&OP cycle
Remember, a poorly planned or executed S&OP process wastes time and resources. It also costs you in lost revenues and profits. Investing in our Sales and Operations Planning Service for Equipment Manufacturers provides immediate benefits and a positive payback.
Our service typically returns your investment within the first 12 months after implementation—and continues adding value for a significant period of time thereafter.
We’ll help you build a compelling business case, including what you need and why. We’re here to help you craft a statement of investment, calculate time and cost, draft a statement of outcomes, create a flow out of financials, gather as-is state data and pain points, and translate it all into P&L implications.
S&OP Best Practices
to Reach Your Financial Goals
Our S&OP Service for Equipment Manufacturers helps you reach six major goals.
Accelerated Focus on P&L and Balance Sheet Impact
Enable cross-functional S&OP alignment and execution across your organization to meet revenue, profitability, and service goals.
360-Degree View
of the Market Lifecycle
Capture sales forecast data across multiple fronts, including demand history, sales and marketing predictions, and dealer forecasts.
Accurate Demand Plans
Create demand plans that address the spectrum of production and supply chain efforts–from project initiation to manufacturing to after sales services and parts.
True Business Alignment
Deploy the right S&OP best practices and procedures to ensure continuous execution across your business, from executives to workers.
Supply Chain Resiliency
Improve supply chain resiliency with visibility for capacity management, production planning, prioritization, sourcing and capability to produce.
Risk Mitigation
Reduce cost risks, such as avoidable expediting and overtime. Minimize risks caused by shifting market conditions.
How We Create the Optimal S&OP Process
We follow a tested and proven, proprietary process to help you reach consensus on a single operating plan, a plan that achieves your objectives in the most efficient and profitable way possible. A typical engagement is 3-4 months.
Phase 1: Align We engage with process owners and stakeholders to educate them on methods and tools and to set expectations on upcoming activities and level of involvement.
Phase 2: Discover We assess your current process, strategic goals, and KPI’s. This phase includes measuring your organizational readiness for change, identifying opportunities for improvement opportunity, and creating an implementation plan.
Phase 3: Design We design an improved future-state process, realign your strategic goals and KPI’s, initiate organizational change management, and define immediate win opportunities.
Phase 4: Deploy We educate your team on the new approach and expected results, complete the change management process, and deploy the enhanced processes into your operating environment.
Phase 5: Monitor We monitor post-deployment acceptance and usage, identify problem areas, and fine-tune the plan to increase your success.
What’s Involved in Creating
a High-Performing S&OP Process
Our Sales and Operations Planning Service for Equipment Manufacturers delivers the results you need via a variety of deliverables, from planning strategy documents to business rules, and from schedules to methods and tool reviews.
Phase 1
Align
Project Team Defined
Project Plan and Scheduling
Methodology Education
Best Practices
Phase 2
Discover
S&OP Readiness Assessment
S&OP Implementation Plan
Business Rules
KPI’s
Phase 3
Design
Future State Sales and Operations Process Definition
Change Management Program Definition
Immediate Opportunities Documented
Phase 4
Deploy
Immediate Opportunities Benefits
Change Management Program
Integration of Future-state S&OP Elements into Organizational Activities
Phase 5
Monitor
New S&OP Process in Operation
Process Owner and Stakeholder Acceptance
Next Steps to Pursue Identified Opportunities
From Pain to Production:
The Path to a More Effective S&OP Process
At MCA Connect, we take you through a discovery exercise that helps you visualize your current challenges and roadblocks, plotting them on a chart that compares the payoff and level of effort for each challenge. We then guide you through the same exercise to help you visualize the results you’ll achieve with our Sales and Operations Planning Service for Equipment Manufacturers.
You Get the Three Essential Ingredients for a Successful S&OP Process
Your success at aligning your production with market demand depends on you getting three things right. And we help you with all three.
- Unified Forecast: We help you create a unified demand forecast, one that has buy-in from all of your concerned stakeholders.
- Holistic Strategy: We help you translate your demand forecast into viable, holistic strategies that optimize your value stream from sales to supply chain to production to support to distribution.
- True Execution: We give your organization the tools, training and mentoring to communicate and effectively execute your plan, from executives to workers.
Why MCA Connect
You’ll find many companies that offer S&OP process consulting services. And you’ll find even more firms that offer Microsoft Dynamics 365 services. But you’ll find only one company that offers both of these services. And only one company that offers these two services to equipment manufacturers.
Tailored Approach
Organized to address the complexities of project-centric and mixed mode equipment manufacturers
Manufacturing Expertise
Strategic advisors with more than 20 years of industry-specific operational experience
Measurable Results
Transforming executive vision into meaningful organization objectives, metrics, and outcomes
Cross-Functional Business Management
Strategic objectives executed cohesively from executives to frontline workers
Change at the Frontline
Set the values and beliefs that focus on four pillars of change: People, Process, Performance, Technology
Migration to New Business Models
Incorporate S&OP process activities into Industry 4.0, lean manufacturing, product servitization and digital transformation initiatives
Ready to Get Started?
Are you looking for transformational improvements in how your company plans, achieves business goals, and drives value? Do you want to proactively manage your business performance to achieve revenue and profit goals? Let’s talk.
