Austerer, M. (2016). Development of a sales and operations planning framework for the automotive engineering-to-order business using the example of body electronics [Master Thesis, Technische Universität Wien; Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava]. reposiTUm. https://doi.org/10.34726/hss.2016.36483
Sales and operations planning; engineering to order; automotive industry; capacity planning
en
Abstract:
This work is analyzing the sales and operations planning process as described by the operations management body of literature with respect to the application in the automotive engineering-to-order business environment. There is still a research gap in the area of the application of sales and operations planning to the engineering-to-order business situation. In order to help closing this research gap a real-world industry case out of the automotive industry featuring an engineering-to-order situation is described as an example. Based on a reference model for a sales and operations planning process, changes to the process are proposed to adapt this framework to the specific engineering to order situation. The main adaption to the state-of-theart is the inclusion of the engineering domain into the operations part of the sales and operations planning process. In literature the operations aspect of sales and operations planning is strongly focused on the manufacturing aspect of the value chain. Concrete ideas are being presented on how a sales and operations planning process that is aimed at improving overall business performance (measured by sales, profitability and cost targets) in an engineering-to-order business could look like. This work concludes with proposals to implement these ideas in the discussed industry case and mentions topics which should be addressed by further studies in this field.