1. How does integrated business planning align demand with available supply?
Ans:
Integrated business planning brings together forecasting, supply planning, inventory decisions, and sales and operations planning. Teams can compare demand with available supply, identify capacity limits, assess alternatives, and align decisions with service targets and financial objectives.
2. How would you evaluate different supply options before finalising a plan?
Ans:
Compare stock needs, shortage risk, supply costs, service effects, and feasibility for each scenario. Validate assumptions and consider the impact on customers and business goals. Recommend the option that balances availability, cost, and supply risk.
3. How does sales and operations planning guide business decisions?
Ans:
Sales and operations planning combines forecasts, supply capacity, inventory needs, and financial goals in one decision process. It helps leaders spot imbalances, assess resource limits, and agree on realistic purchasing and production plans. Regular reviews connect long-term priorities with day-to-day operations.
4. Which factors matter when deciding safety stock levels?
Ans:
Consider demand variability, supplier reliability, replenishment time, forecast accuracy, and the cost of stockouts. Review service targets and inventory policy before setting a buffer. Monitor real shortages and surplus stock to determine whether the chosen level remains suitable.
5. How do repeated forecasting mistakes influence procurement and deliveries?
Ans:
Overestimating demand can create excess stock and unnecessary orders, while underestimating it can lead to shortages and late deliveries. Compare forecasts with actual demand by product and period to identify bias. Investigate causes, adjust assumptions where justified, and track accuracy over time.
6. What would you inspect if an SAP IBP planning job did not complete?
Ans:
Check job status, logs, planning parameters, and data dependencies. Look for configuration faults, missing input data, or access issues that may have stopped execution. Resolve the cause, rerun the job under established procedures, and confirm the expected planning results are available.
7. How would you prepare supply for a new product introduction?
Ans:
Review launch forecasts, component stock, supplier capacity, manufacturing resources, and distribution needs. Identify long-lead materials and constraints that could delay launch. Coordinate with purchasing, production, sales, and logistics to confirm readiness and create a workable launch plan.
8. Why is cross-functional teamwork important for reliable deliveries?
Ans:
Purchasing, production, inventory, and logistics rely on timely, consistent supply and demand data. Collaboration helps coordinate receipts, production schedules, storage, and customer shipments. Sharing updates quickly reduces conflicting decisions and improves responses to unexpected changes.
9. What should an SAP SCM functional specification document contain?
Ans:
Explain the business issue, target outcome, affected processes, planning inputs, and expected system response. Include business rules, exception handling, reports, and integration dependencies. Review the document with stakeholders, define measurable acceptance criteria, and use the approved requirements for configuration and testing.
10. How would you check that a supply chain solution continues to perform after launch?
Ans:
Set baseline metrics and compare them with operating results over a representative period after launch. Track inventory, shortages, supplier performance, order fulfilment, and planning efficiency. Account for demand and supply changes, gather user feedback, and make further improvements if targets are missed.
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