There is an increased demand for supply chain experts with good understanding of forecasting, demand planning and S&OP, says Jim Schultz. Shultz is a recruiter who focuses on the medical device, pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors for established companies and startups.
“Oliver Wight Americas is offering a new course called Capacity Planning for the Supply Chain”, says Schultz on his weblog. “I note this not to plug Oliver Wight but because it corroborates a trend I am seeing in my recruiting work: that is, an increased demand for supply chain folks who understand forecasting, demand planning, and S&OP.”
Dennis Groves of Oliver Wight Americas, says this course is important to companies: “There are opportunities to improve capacity planning, chiefly better ways to communicate and align with both internal and external suppliers’ capacity. With improved alignment and integration come better capacity investment decisions.”
Schulz had jobs that required those skills, amongst which two demand planners for a high-growth consumer electronics company, a senior product manager for a medical device/pharma company with supply chain knowledge and an expert in inventory management and S&OP, and a senior manager planning for setting up a forecasting process for a rapidly growing company.
“It seems to me the common thread is the desire for the supply chain to be able to more accurately predict what goods and services are needed when – thus minimizing inventory costs while maximizing customer fulfillment”, he says.