Sales and Operations Planning

The forecasting department, traditionally reporting to the sale manager, has historically seen a forecast accuracy of about 60%, and this in turn causes problems for the following departments:

• Purchasing: What should we buy and how much?
• Production: What should we really build?
• Inventory management: We keep building the wrong thing.

The sales manager asked you to write her a memo, specifically addressing the following:

• How could you suggest that your new system would achieve any better levels of forecast accuracy?
• Why is forecast accuracy itself not as important under traditional methods?
• Create a chart or timeline that includes all of the following:
• Which purchase orders have to be placed, and when
• When manufacturing needs to begin, to have products delivered to a customer
• Approximate dates for all of the following:
  • When the product must be shipped to meet the customer's due date
  • When the application of the cover and packaging must take place to meet the customer's due date
  • When the manufacturing of the widget must begin and end
  • When the raw material for the widget must be ordered
  • When the plastic cover must be ordered
  • When the cardboard box must be ordered
• Includes notes explain your timing calculation
• Assumes all of the following conditions:
  • The factory has two departments: manufacturing and packaging
  • Product X consists of 3 components
  • a widget manufactured in the factory with a total manufacturing lead time of 1 week
  • a plastic cover purchased from vendor A with a procurement lead time of 3 weeks
  • a cardboard shipping box purchased from vendor B with a procurement lead time of 4 weeks
• The widget itself is made from steel (whose lead time from vendor C is 4 weeks).
• It takes 1 day for the cover to be applied to the product and for the product to be inserted in the box in the packaging department.
• The shipping time to this customer is in 3 weeks, and you do not want it to be late or early.
• Assume you received the customer order on 1/1/20XX.
• Ignore any holidays
• Assume a 5-day work week
• The customer requires the product to arrive at his location on 3/31/2011
•  500-750 words plus a chart/time line (1 document

• Individual Project Rubric

   

   

  Grading Criteria	Percentage
  Deliverable requirements addressed; understanding of material and writer's message and intent are clear.	35%
  Scholarly research supports the writer's position and is properly acknowledged, and cited direct quotations may not exceed 10% of the word count of the body of the assignment deliverable (excluding title page, abstract, table of contents, tables, exhibits, appendices, and reference pages). Inclusion of plagiarized content will not be tolerated and may result in adverse academic consequences.	20%
  Critical thinking: Position is well-justified, there is logical flow, and there are examples.	20%
  Structure: Includes introduction and conclusion, proper paragraph format, and reads as a polished, academic paper or professional presentation, as appropriate for the required assignment deliverable.	10%
  Mechanical: No spelling, grammatical, or punctuation errors.	10%
  APA: Deliverable is cited properly according to the APA Publication Manual (6th ed.).	5%