Supply planning and demand planning can be combined into a holistic process most refer to as Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP). The S&OP process typically entails the creation of a master supply/demand operating plan that establishes a self-consistent, feasible set of inventory plans, production plans and constrained sales plans. To successfully create and manage such a complex process, companies must develop and support an integrated environment of collaboration, reporting and analysis that is supported by the ideal workflow and technology. WAM Systems' Advanced Planning Module was developed for this reason - to be the ideal supporting technology for the S&OP Process.

The Advanced Planning Module - part of the Picaso™ supply chain solution - provides a simulation and optimization environment to create a balanced S&OP plan, taking into account product demands, inventory targets, manufacturing capacities, and supply chain constraints.

Optimization comes in the form of integration with an optimization engine used for developing production plans that help minimize costs and maximize profitability. As an example, the optimization engine can provide a means of rapidly determining not only what portion of a forecast is feasible to produce, but what product mix is most profitable to produce. In situations where capacity exceeds demand, the optimization tool identifies opportunities to increase profits by highlighting the most advantageous products and markets upon which to focus sales efforts.

And, like all of the Picaso modules, the Advanced Planning Module presents its results in an easy-to-understand user interface. The user can explore the solution interactively, and can modify the solution to include qualitative considerations that were not mathematically modeled.

The Picaso Advanced Planning Module blends the best of shrink-wrap software with the flexibility of a programming language. Since it was built for the process industry, the solution easily handles complex, multi-site supply chain problems with minimal configuration. When unique problems arise, it uses the power of Picaso's model formulation language combined with the optimization engine to quickly generate solutions.

Features Enterprise visibility Comprehensive finance model Comprehensive, configurable KPI dashboard Flexible, unlimited data sorting, filtering and grouping Tracking of daily actuals to plan Full multi-user access with edit / view security Telescoping time buckets, unlimited horizon Innovative, unlimited drill-down and roll-up Change tracking and comparison Fully integrated to all other Picaso modules

Benefits Simultaneous planning of demands, production and inventory Optimization creates most profitable combined plan Plan can be monitored at any time to display actuals deviating from plan Automated interfaces with ERP allows plan and/or ERP to be updated at any time Integration with tactical planning (scheduling, order taking, MRP, ...) Supports continuous updating of plans, while maintaining the frozen S&OP copy Extensive what-if and plan comparison features

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