Sales & Operations Planning (SOP) is a flexible forecasting and planning tool with which sales, production, and other supply chain targets can be set on the basis of historical, existing, and estimated future data. Rough-cut planning can also be carried out to determine the amounts of the capacities and other resources required to meet these targets.

Use SOP to streamline and consolidate your company’s sales and production operations.

SOP is particularly suitable for long- and medium-term planning.

SOP constitutes the planning functionality of the LIS information systems.

You pass on SOP plans to Demand Management (PP-MP-DEM) in the form of independent requirements. In turn, this data is fed to Master Production Scheduling (PP-MP-MPS) and Material Requirements Planning (PP-MRP).

An interface with Profitability Analysis (CO-PA) allows you to use CO-PA data as the basis for sales planning in SOP.

You can also pass on the results of SOP to Profitability Analysis (CO-PA), Cost Center Accounting (CO-OM-CCA), and Activity-Based Costing (CO-OM-CCA).

Application Link Enabling (CA-BFA-ALE) supports the distribution of data to different operating units in your enterprise.

SOP is made up of two application components:

• Standard SOP (PP-SOP)

• Flexible Planning (LO-LIS-PLN)

Standard SOP comes largely preconfigured with the system.

Flexible Planning offers multiple options for customized configuration: you can plan on any organizational level, and also define the content and the layout of the planning screens.

You can process your planning data from the standpoint of almost any organizational unit (for example, sales organization, material group, production plant, product group, material) and even from the standpoint of the entire enterprise.

The planning table in which you work resembles a spreadsheet. You have enormous scope to track previous planning data, anticipate market demand, run analyses, and perform what-if simulations.

A series of mass processing functions automate the planning of large volumes of data.

SOP is suitable for the planning of finished materials, but not for the planning of the materials’ component parts. The one exception is Characteristics Planning.