Roche Pharmaceuticals Operations Planning Research Paper

Roche Pharmaceuticals Operations Planning - Research Paper Example Sales & Operations Planning At Roche an efficient sales & operations planning is used in order to balance demand and supply, to align mix and volume and for integrating financial and operating plans. This has been facilitated by using of Enterprise Resource Planning systems discussed in later sections. At Roche, the top management takes ownership of the sales and operations planning process. The management considers it a source of delivering business plans and strategies. The medium to long term decisions are taken by the top executives while the short term decisions are taken by the middle management. Various products at Roche pharmaceuticals are divided into families which makes it easier for management to review them for planning. Roche believes in proactive management rather than reactive crisis management. Hence, the sales and operations plan are designed well ahead of time. The sales and operations planning process also encompasses risk analysis and mitigation. The various possible scenarios in the planning horizon are studied and plans are made to tackle sudden rise or fall in demand and resources. After the plans have been decided at the top, they are communicated throughout the organization for smooth and accurate implementation. Broadly speaking, 5 steps are followed by Roche for Sales and Operations Planning. In the first steps, all new product development programmes are reviewed with the help of Research and Development Department. The information obtained acts as input for the sales and operations planning process. The concerned risks and assumptions are also documented. In the second step, a new sales and demand plan is created. The forecasts made here are dependent upon inputs from various stakeholders in the meeting. Roche accomplishes forecasting with the help of SAP ERP tools. The system generated forecasts are shared with all stakeholders. Any changes suggested are incorporated after discussion and the final forecasts are developed. These forecasts act as input for demand planning meeting. The concerned risks and assumptions are documented. In the third step, an operations plan is prepared in order to fulfill demands for each time period. For this the old operations plan is studied and the differen ces are noted. In the new operations plan, these differences are adjusted keeping in view the various resource constraints and inventory levels. The operations plan is multiplied by bill of materials required for each product family to arrive at total required resources. The required resources are compared with available resources. If there are significant differences, solutions to fill those gaps are identified and documented. In the fourth step, the impact of operations plan on other departments such as Accounts, finance, IT and sales is studied. Reconciliations and corrections are done to address concerns of various departments. Finally the key recommendations and potential scenarios are studied to from an agenda for the final Sales and Operations Planning meeting. The agenda is shared before the meeting for everyone to understand. In the fifth step, final Sales and Operations meeting is conducted. In the final meeting, the progress on previous sales and operations plan is studie d, plan for each product family is reviewed, approvals are made and new proposals are decided. The minutes of meeting and action plans are then communicated to various stakeholders (PHS, 2006). 5.3. Aggregate Planning Strategies Roche pharmaceuticals uses aggregate planning for achieving its medium term objectives. The activities are planned at various

Planet of Mercury Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Planet of Mercury - Essay Example Notably, we can establish that unlike other planets, Mercury does not have an atmosphere, seasons, moons, satellites, or rings (â€Å"NASA† 1). As such, it is a very unique planet which is difficult but worth studying. There are only 58 million Kilometers separating the sun from Mercury (â€Å"NASA† 1) thus making the study of Mercury difficult for scholars. Nevertheless, a radar imaging from the Earth in the 1960s helped scientists to study Mercury. As such, scientists confirm that Mercury has a radius of 2,439.7 km, a volume of 60,827,208,742 km3, and a total mass of about 330,104,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg (â€Å"NASA† 1). Furthermore, with a density of 5.4 grams per cubic centimeter, Mercury is very dense compared to other planets in the solar system (â€Å"Space Facts† 1). Although Mercury revolves around the sun at the fastest speed, it seemingly rotates around its axis at a very slow speed where it takes about 1 Mercury day or 59 Earth days to make a complete spin (â€Å"NASA† 1). Indeed, mercury takes about 88 Earth days or 1 Mercury year to revolve around the sun (â€Å"NASA† 1).... More so, the thin exosphere ensures the prevention of wind erosion on the surface of Mercury and that friction does not cause the meteorites to burn (â€Å"National Geographic Society† 1). The composition of the thin exosphere entails different levels of potassium, oxygen, neon, argon, sodium, carbon dioxide, hydrogen (H2), nitrogen, helium (He), and krypton (â€Å"NASA† 1). The core of Mercury has the highest iron content higher iron content the Solar System (â€Å"National Geographic Society† 1) where its metallic core measures about 2200 to 2,400 miles in width, 42% of its volume (â€Å"Space Facts† 1), and about 75 percent of the its diameter. With a magnetic field in the solar wind, Mercury is very active and its charged particles normally stream from the sun and touch the planet’s magnetic field thereby creating a powerful magnetic tornado (â€Å"Science Daily† 1). The magnetic tornado transmits the hot plasma of the solar wind to the s urface of Mercury. Scientists established that the iron core of Mercury cools and contacts to wrinkle the surface of the planet. They further named the wrinkles as Lobate Scarps, which extend to hundreds of miles in length (â€Å"Space Facts† 1). Ideally, there have been various theories explaining how Mercury formed which relate to the physical removal of silicates or the differences in the composition material. One of the theories attributes the formation of Mercury to an impact that shrunk the size and mass of the planet. The shrinking occurred as the planet cooled (â€Å"National Geographic Society† 1) and led to the crumpling and formation of cliffs on the surface of Mercury. Indeed, scientists believe that the planetesimal reduced