Sunsweet Growers Inc. is the world’s largest agricultural corporate dealing in dried tree fruits. It has its headquarters in Yuba City (California) and it processes and markets 40,000 cases of dried fruits every day. It is the global market leader of prunes. Like any other company, Sunsweet has issues with its supply chain management. Some of the constraints faced by the company are as follows: * Single limited source of supply * Supply and demand beyond company’s control; supply determined by the weather whereas the market influences the demand side * Anticipated increase in demand during festive seasons was difficult to manage * Packaging of goods for international market was…show more content… Prerequisite of implementing the S&OP was to get rid of all the old data to attain uniformity in the database. Using one set of data was optimal to get all the stakeholders in the supply chain to work effectively with one another. Next in line was to train all internal staff to cope with the new methods and procedures of the S&OP program, and to take care that the transition to the new system was as smooth as possible.
As S&OP was implemented, Sunsweet noticed positive improvements in their business as well operational procedures. S&OP’s distinctive five stages helped in the following manner: 1) Demand Visibility – This stage helped Sunsweet get rid of old data and leap into the realm of automated data compilation as a collective task. Therefore better communication between departments was necessary, giving rise to methodic and rapid decision making at any level. Sunsweet finally was able to accomplish a uniform database, comprehensible to any internal staff or management. 2) Demand Planning – Provided Sunsweet a complete forecasting tool wherein it collects data from various sources and renders the best available solution(s). As different scenarios were generated, management could easily take economically viable decision(s). It also gave rise to an alert system that would warn concerning staff through emails of any potential crises, and thus avoid huge financial losses to the firm. Forecasts increased by 15-20% and took lesser time. 3) Inventory
