S&OP continues to be the Holy Grail for manufacturing companies pursuing break through financial and operational performance. One of the key requirements for any successful S&OP process is reporting and analytics. While many technologies are available to provide flexible reporting, few applications are available that embrace Out-of-the-Box reporting and dashboards designed specifically for S&OP.

Steelwedge has worked with leading manufacturing companies to develop a rich set of S&OP dashboards, reports and metrics that represent the Best Practices. While certain companies and industries have their own unique reporting requirements for S&OP, the following reporting categories are critical to any successful S&OP Process.

1. Revenue & Margin Tracking

2. Forecast Accuracy

3. Inventory Tracking

4. Customer Service Levels

5. Demand Supply Balancing

Revenue and Margin reports that project into the future and track actuals against plan, are one of the most fundamental reporting requirements for any successful S&OP process. These reports are typically available in a variety of formats that include: quarter-to-date and year-to-date actuals versus targets, year over year comparisons of monthly, quarterly and year-to-date totals, rolling 3 month totals, and cumulative revenue and margin totals versus plan.

Forecast & Accuracy is another key reporting requirement that compares actual demand versus forecast. The most common measure used for measuring forecast accuracy is Mean Absolute Percent Error (MAPE). In addition, companies measure MAPE at different time lags to track how plans change and accuracy improves over time. Reports that capture planning assumptions at different time lags are commonly referred to as Waterfall Reports. Understanding forecast error over lead time is important in managing risk through the use of safety stock and flexible capacities. Finally, companies also track…