S&OP review

An S&OP cycle carries its month, fiscal year, kickoff date, owner and status. Its meetings identify the demand, supply, reconciliation and executive stages. Each meeting has a facilitator, scheduled date and status. Attendee records identify each person’s role at the meeting and attendance outcome, including a delegate when relevant. The Demand Planning Manager can use those records to make the review cadence explicit.

Decisions have a type, description, decision maker, date, status and optional quantity or revenue impact. They also connect to affected planning entities. A decision to accept an adjustment can therefore be read next to the period forecast and the meeting where it was made. Forecast versions preserve the statistical, marketing-adjusted, sales-consensus and final-approved positions as dated snapshots.

• Set the cycle. Demand Planning Manager reviews the month and meeting schedule.
• Record discussion. Facilitator gathers attendees and puts exceptions, contributions and forecast versions on the agenda.
• Capture the decision. Executive and the planning manager review the final position; decisions retain their affected entities and impact.

Agree who facilitates each meeting, who is required to attend and when a delegate may speak for an absent member. Define the cutoff for forecast version snapshots. A version taken before commercial input should remain distinct from one taken after consensus; changing a label later would make the sequence hard to audit. Decide who records the decision and when its status can move from recorded to applied.

The cycle status should represent the current review stage. A published cycle should have a final snapshot and the relevant decision trail available to the people who will use it. The demand planning function should agree how new information discovered after publication enters the next cycle or a documented correction, rather than being folded into a prior version without explanation.

A demand review identifies a large variance for a product in the Central wholesale channel. The facilitator puts the exception and affected forecast version on the meeting agenda. Operations Lead brings a capacity concern to supply review. At reconciliation, Demand Planning Manager reviews the chosen adjustment and its affected planning entity. Executive reviews the final version and recorded impact in the executive meeting before the cycle is published.

After publication, compare the final forecast with the next actual quantity and error metrics. This closes the learning loop: a meeting decision becomes a traceable plan, and the next cycle has evidence for a better judgment.

• S&OP meeting schedule — Upcoming demand, supply, reconciliation and executive sessions with facilitators.
• Consensus plan board — The position moving through review stages toward publication.
• Open exceptions — Issues that need a decision before the plan is settled.

Follow consensus to publication and exception to decision.