S&OP as Driver for Sustainability

Azevedo, Bruno Duarte; Kalla, Christian; Kreuter, Tobias; Scavarda, Luiz Felipe; Hellingrath, Bernd

Abstract

Both Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) and sustainability are
enjoying growing interest in the area of Operations Management. However, the asso-
ciation between them still lacks in academic research and industrial applications. This
paper aims to develop a first analysis of the potential relationship between S&OP
and sustainability and develops a comprehension of the possibility of managing
sustainability through the lens of S&OP. The researchers conducted a systematic
literature review to integrate the different and fragmented contents available in the
literature associated with S&OP, especially to its tactical planning perspective, and
sustainability. The absence of in-depth discussions on the feasibility of using tactical
planning as a driver to improve sustainability can be understood as evidence that,
in general, the academic literature already accepts this idea. The current discussion
seems to be in the “How to do” level, which confirms the great opportunity to adapt
S&OP to better achieve goals related to sustainability. Integrating S&OP and sustain-
ability is crucial due to the essential role of S&OP as a tactical planning approach,
in linking strategic and operational activities as well as its integrative nature among
different functional areas within the firm and its supply chain. To reinforce the feasi-
bility of managing these two subjects, three propositions are also presented within
this research. Finally, the development of a framework for sustainable S&OP is
suggested for future works.

Keywords
Tactical planning; Supply chain; Triple bottom line