Question

Sales and operations planning is a process adapted from industrial and manufacturing settings. How can it be applied to hospitals?

Answer 1

Sales and operations planning is an integrated approach that is used to align the different functions of the organization with each other and create synergy in the organization. It helps to improve the efficiency, productivity and reduce the order processing or lead time of the delivery of the orders. More prominently, it is used in the manufacturing industry. But, it can also be used in the hospital setup that is used to deliver different types of services to the patients. Sales & operations planning can be applied in the following ways.

1. Building a sales forecasting function in the hospital and linking it to the information system of the past orders or service queries. It will tell the forecast of the number of patient inquiries, different types of services in demand in the coming future and demand of sales force also that can work to promote the services offered by the hospital.

2. Transfer of the inputs of the forecasting to the operation function to make capacity planning, expansion of capabilities, material requirement planning, scheduling of the operations as well as inventory management.

3. The sharing of the inputs to the purchase department to bring necessary supplies in the hospital to cater the demand of the services.

4. Readying the other functions also such as Finance & A/C to add or plan capacities to cater the customers and HR function to bring new individuals, train existing workforce and develop the staff to take up bigger responsibilities.

5. The sales function inputs are also used to develop the relationship with the suppliers of the medical supplies so that no any case of stock-out takes place.

Hence, sales & operations planning is used to cater the opportunities and prevent the scope of poor delivery of the services in the hospital. It readies the hospital to cater the opportunities in the best possible ways.