Barriers to widespread S&OP implementation in ATO and MTO companies - a literature review

Sales and operations planning (S&OP) is a comprehensive planning method which originates in management consulting and has gained significant attention in the industry. Academic research has hesitantly picked up this topic, but few research frameworks exist. In this paper we present the results from a review in which we analyze current S&OP literature. Our key findings show that many of the existing publications still target practitioners, research on the impact of S&OP according to the type of industry and company size is missing and an overarching S&OP framework is needed in order to foster research on this topic.