Describe how both top-down and bottom-up planning work and the situations where one approach is superior to the other
What will be an ideal response?
Answer: Top-down planning is an approach to S&OP where a single, aggregated sales forecast drives the planning process. This aggregate sales forecast is translated into resource requirements, effectively moving from sales figures to labor and machine hours and amounts of raw materials, purchased parts or subassemblies. Finally, alternative production plans are generated and compared to see which is best. For top-down planning to work, the mix of products or services must be essentially the same from one time period to the next, or the products or services to be provided must have very similar resource requirements.
Bottom-up planning is an approach to S&OP that is used when the product or service mix is unstable and resource requirements vary greatly across the offerings. Under these conditions, managers will estimate the requirements for each set of products or services separately, translating sales figures into resource requirements just as is done in top-down planning, and then add them up to get an overall picture of the resource requirements.
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A) opportunity cost. B) sunk cost. C) uncontrollable cost. D) differential cost.
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A. theater tickets B. spring break vacations C. prescription drugs D. restaurant meals E. a specific brand of cereal
Which of the following can be effective in increasing mail survey response rates and developing panels of respondents who are interviewed regularly?
A. Premiums B. Samples C. Dichotomous questions D. Open-ended questions E. CrowdsourcingÂ