Experiential Supply Chain Analytics Problems for Sales and Operations Planning

Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) requires structured experiential problems that allow analysts, managers, and executives to explore how sales forecasts, supply constraints, and operational decisions interact across the end-to-end supply chain. This paper introduces a set of experiential supply chain analytics problems that illustrate key quantitative elements of S&OP, including procurement and transportation of components, production and inventory management, and the alignment of finished goods availability with sales targets. The problems are organized into a three-stage framework that progresses from fragmented transactional planning in disjoint spreadsheets to optimization-based decision analytics using mathematical models and finally to collaborative experimentation through a multi-user cloud-based simulation tool. Together, these experiential problems provide a practical environment for evaluating alternative sales plans, testing operational responses, and understanding the trade-offs and coordination requirements inherent in S&OP.