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TRANSITION MANAGEMENT IN SUPPLY CHAIN

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PLEASE, DRAW ME AN M.P.S.! (The Master Production Schedule for DUMMIES)

A Governance Mechanism Between S&OP and Execution in an APS Environment

1. Definition and Purpose of the MPS

According to APICS (now ASCM – Association for Supply Chain Management), the Master Production Schedule (MPS) is a statement of what the company plans to produce, expressed in specific configurations, quantities, and dates. It translates aggregate plans into detailed, actionable commitments and serves as a primary input to Material Requirements Planning (MRP).

The MPS fulfills several fundamental roles:

  • It converts the Sales and Operations Plan (S&OP) into an executable production plan.
  • It is defined at the level of finished goods or critical subassemblies.
  • It operates on a discrete time bucket, most commonly weekly.
  • It acts as a formal coordination mechanism between Sales, Operations, Manufacturing, and Supply Chain.

2. The Continued Relevance of the MPS in APS Environments

With the widespread adoption of Advanced Planning Systems (APS), organizations benefit from continuous recalculation of capacity, material availability, and constraints across multiple horizons. However, continuous computational optimization does not eliminate the need for decision stabilization.

APS systems optimize plans; organizations execute commitments. The MPS remains essential as the mechanism that deliberately introduces stability, accountability, and commitment into the planning process.

3. The MPS as a Temporal Governance Instrument

Historically, the MPS has fulfilled three inseparable governance functions:

  • Arbitration of internal constraints and trade-offs.
  • Formalization of market and customer commitments.
  • Stabilization of decisions over time.

As such, the MPS should not be viewed solely as a production planning tool, but as a temporal governance layer that structures decision-making across planning horizons

4. The Time Funnel Concept

Planning systems must reconcile computational continuity with human decision-making limitations. Without clearly defined stabilization zones, organizations experience frequent priority changes, weakened customer commitments, and reduced operational credibility.

The time funnel provides a structured progression:

Within this framework, APS systems perform calculations and simulations, while the MPS defines which decisions are stabilized and which remain flexible.

  • S&OP establishes strategic direction at an aggregate, monthly level.
  • MPS translates this direction into item-level, weekly commitments.
  • Detailed scheduling converts these commitments into daily execution decisions.

5. From S&OP to MPS: Commitment and Precision

The transition from S&OP to MPS represents a shift:

  • From aggregated to item-level planning.
  • From directional guidance to explicit commitments.
  • From scenario evaluation to executable plans.

In summary: S&OP defines what the organization intends to do; the MPS defines what the organization commits to do.

6. Weekly Time Buckets as Best Practice

APICS best practices recommend weekly time buckets for the MPS, as they:

  • Align with most industrial production and procurement cycles.
  • Support credible customer promise dates.
  • Provide sufficient granularity without excessive volatility.
  • Ensure continuity between monthly S&OP and daily scheduling.

Daily buckets introduce instability and are good for Detailed Schedulers , while monthly buckets lack operational precision and are good for the S&OP.

7. MPS Planning Horizon and Time Zones

The recommended MPS horizon should at minimum cover:

  • Manufacturing lead time.
  • Critical procurement lead time.
  • Customer commitment horizon.

In practice, it’s recommended to use a MPS horizon equal 2times Cumulative lead-time.

This horizon is commonly divided into three zones: frozen, slushy, and liquid.

8. The Frozen Zone: The MPS as a Commitment Contract

Within the frozen zone:

  • Quantities and dates are fixed.
  • Changes are exceptional and formally managed.
  • Customer commitments are explicitly protected.

In this zone, the MPS represents not merely a production plan, but a credible sales promise.

9. Positioning the MPS in the Bill of Material

The MPS is not defined by a specific manufacturing step, but by decision relevance. It should be positioned where:

  • Structural bottlenecks exist.
  • Decisions are costly or irreversible.
  • Downstream priorities are determined.
  • Subsequent processes consume planning decisions.

The MPS defines what is authorized to flow downstream.

10. Pharmaceutical Industry Illustration

In pharmaceutical supply chains:

  • The industrial MPS is often positioned at the dominant bottleneck (API, formulation, or packaging).
  • The commercial MPS is defined at the sellable finished-product level, with a weekly frozen zone.

APS systems ensure end-to-end feasibility and optimization, while the MPS ensures operational credibility and commitment integrity.

11. Complementarity Between APS and MPS

The roles are complementary:

  • APS: optimization, simulation, constraint propagation.
  • MPS: stabilization, commitment, accountability.

Rather than an intermediate planning artifact, the MPS functions as a core governance mechanism linking strategic intent to operational execution.

Conclusion

In globalized manufacturing networks, centralized S&OP processes define strategic priorities, while local MPS processes translate these priorities into reliable, executable weekly plans that reflect site-specific constraints. This approach, consistent with APICS planning principles and the time funnel concept, reconciles global alignment with local execution credibility, ensuring stable customer commitments and sustained operational performance.

Emmanuel de Ryckel

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EXCESSIVE CENTRALIZATION, OR THE SLOW AGONY OF LIVING ORGANIZATIONS

There is a striking parallel between nations and large corporations.

They are born out of enthusiasm, grow in an unstructured manner, and often end up becoming stuck in their own certainty. The history of France, built on centralization, is a microcosm of that of many industrial groups: the same desire for control, the same virtues, and sometimes the same dangers.

The temptation of corporate Versailles

When a company grows, it naturally seeks to protect itself from disorder.

It creates a headquarters, structures, procedures, and “centers of excellence.”

Everything goes up to the top, everything comes back down through official channels.

It’s a reassuring tendency: it makes us believe we have better control over complexity.

But the risk is an old one: the center, which has become the “corporate Versailles,” begins to think it knows better than those who live the daily reality of the market, the laboratory, or the field.

So, like the kings of France before the Revolution, it surrounds itself with a court of experts, rituals, and dashboards—and ends up no longer hearing the murmurings of reality.

During my professional career, I have had the opportunity to interact with a variety of operational and organizational models:

The balanced model: temperate monarchy

A number of organizations manage to strike the right balance.

Their center is strong, providing vision and ensuring consistency, but local entities retain the freedom to adapt, experiment, and innovate.

It is a form of temperate monarchy, where authority does not stifle creativity.

The headquarters enlightens, guides, and inspires—without stifling.

This type of organization remains consistent without becoming rigid, unified without being uniform.

The secret lies in trust: that of a center that accepts that intelligence is not limited to its walls, and that of the periphery that recognizes the value of a shared vision.

The decentralized model: the republic of provinces

Other companies have opted for a more organic, almost artisanal model.

They prefer local freedom to global symmetry.

Each entity acts as an autonomous workshop, rooted in its territory, responsible for its own choices, but faithful to the same philosophy.

Here, the link between headquarters and sites is not administrative: it is cultural.

This model does not always shine in terms of speed, but it compensates with its human depth and adaptability.

It is the France of cathedrals rather than Versailles: each construction site has its own form, but they all build the same structure.

The hypertrophied model: the temptation of the large center

Finally, after years of diversity, some companies seek to “rationalize.”

They want to harmonize, globalize, and standardize.

The intention is good: to ensure consistency, avoid redundancies, and strengthen the visibility of headquarters.

But by trying too hard to control, they end up sterilizing the organization.

Decisions become slow, creativity dies out, and local teams stop taking risks.

The organization gains in clarity but loses vitality.

It becomes a beautiful machine—but one whose springs are gradually loosening.

It’s the same paradox that great civilizations have experienced:

when the center becomes too perfect, life gradually disappear.

The cycles of power

Here we see the classic cycle of empires, whether political or industrial:

Decentralized expansion: pioneers innovate, disorder is fertile. Centralized structuring: order prevails, rules are established. Bureaucratic rigidity: fear of the unexpected replaces confidence. Crisis or rebirth: depending on the center’s ability to breathe new life into its margins.

Civilizations die when those in power stop listening to their provinces.

Companies decline when headquarters no longer perceives the life of its subsidiaries and factories.

Towards organic centralization

The challenge is not to choose between centralization and autonomy, but to create a dynamic movement between the two.

A center that guides without dominating, that coordinates without controlling.

A center that acts not as a distant brain, but as a heart: it pulses, it connects, it energizes.

The future belongs to organizations capable of combining global rigor with local sensitivity—

those where strategy flows down, but experience flows up.

It is this circulation, not pure verticality, that gives the whole its breathing space.

Conclusion: the respiration of empires

Nations and companies die from the same disease: deafness at the center.

They are reborn when they understand that intelligence is diffuse, that it circulates, that it feeds on exchange.

Centralization, when used in moderation, gives strength.

When taken to excess, it becomes a slow suffocation.

An organization, like a civilization, does not last because it controls everything,but because it listens to what makes it alive.

Emmanuel de Ryckel

(Reflections on industrial governance and the dynamics of civilizations)

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FROM CENTRALIZATION TO COLLABORATION: RESTORING POWER TO LOCAL PLANNING !

In the pharmaceutical industry, centralizing supply chain planning functions has gradually become the standard. The goal seemed clear: harmonize processes, improve end-to-end visibility, and enable more coherent capacity decisions on a global scale. This approach has indeed brought real benefits in terms of strategic oversight and coordination between markets and production.

Yet behind this apparent success lies a deeper imbalance. By transferring most planning responsibilities to global entities, local planning functions—particularly at the factory level—have gradually been stripped of their substance. Their role, once central to operational control on site, is often reduced to executing plans decided elsewhere. This gradual shift has led to a loss of autonomy, purpose, and sometimes industrial performance.

How can this trend be reversed?

The Paradox of Centralization

A supply chain can only perform well if each of its links does. Behind every global plan lies a complex industrial reality, full of constraints, uncertainties, and daily trade-offs. Planning truly proves its value on the factory floor, where adaptation and local optimization happen. A strategy only matters if it can be executed rigorously and responsively—directly depending on the skills and autonomy of local teams.

The most advanced organizations understand this: global performance is not built against the field but with it. Global Planning sets the direction, prioritizes, and arbitrates. Local Planning translates this vision into action, optimizing resources and managing performance in close alignment with real-world constraints.

The Critical Role of Local Planning

Revaluing local planning functions means acknowledging their decisive role in supply chain reliability. Local planners ensure stable production plans, anticipate deviations, and adjust sequences according to actual capacity.

They also guarantee continuity of supply to markets and, consequently, the quality of service delivered to customers. In this context, the most relevant metrics are not only internal: Service Level to Customers, days of stockouts, and product availability reflect actual performance far better than OTIF alone, which is often perceived as a logistics metric disconnected from the customer experience.

Restoring Meaning to local  Planning

Putting factory planners back at the center restores purpose to planning itself. These are experts of industrial reality, professionals capable of turning a global vision into reliable execution.

Reestablishing the role of local planning begins with clarifying responsibilities and improving the complementarity between global and local teams. Globally, priorities lie in coordination, strategic alignment, and capacity arbitration between sites. Locally, planning focuses on execution optimization, fine-tuned constraint management, and short- to medium-term control.

For this complementarity to work, a bi-directional model is essential: local teams don’t just execute global decisions—they feed global planning with reliable data, highlight constraints, and propose trade-offs. Regular feedback loops—such as weekly reviews of local constraints with Global Planning—turn these interactions into real performance levers.

At the same time, it is crucial to build a rewarding career path for local planners. Clear career progression enables them to evolve into recognized expert roles, such as “Site Planning Master” or “Local Supply Chain Optimization Lead.”

Creating a cross-functional network of planning experts, visible and valued alongside global functions, further reinforces their recognition. Finally, highlighting local gains achieved through optimization initiatives—Lean Planning, automation, simulations—demonstrates the strategic impact of these teams on overall performance.

Global Excellence Starts in the factories

Global excellence is not commanded from headquarters. It is built every day—on the shop floor, in planning offices, close to operations. Local planners are the discreet artisans of this excellence: embodying rigor, responsiveness, and resilience that distinguish a well-managed supply chain from a truly high-performing one.

By placing local planning at the heart of operations, companies strengthen agility, coherence, and their ability to respond effectively to market needs.

It is in this alliance between global vision and local excellence that the true competitiveness of the supply chain is decided.

How are you empowering local planning functions in your organization?

#SupplyChain #Pharma #Planning #Leadership #OperationalExcellence

Emmanuel de Ryckel

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OTIF, the GPS for the Blind!

Why do so many Supply Chain experts persistently focus on the OTIF performance indicator — On Time In Full — whether to assess a subcontractor, a supplier, or even their own plant?
Because OTIF is seductive. It reassures. It offers the illusion of simplicity, a single truth, and total control. At first glance, it seems to represent the promise of a satisfied customer: deliver on time, deliver the right quantity, deliver what was ordered. The industrial dream summed up in four letters. The real key indicator of any Supply Chain’s health, however, remains the level of Service to the Customers who keep us alive.

You can easily spot the OTIF believers. They speak in percentages, swear by their dashboards, and treat any deviation from target as a mortal sin. The world around them may be falling apart — shortages, overstocks, runaway costs, exasperated customers — it doesn’t matter: as long as the OTIF looks good, everything’s fine.

Yet OTIF is nothing more than the GPS of the blind — version 4.0 of magical thinking. We stop trying to understand the system; we just rate it. We no longer manage the flow; we evaluate it. We follow the voice of the GPS, even when we’re clearly getting lost.

Behind the apparent simplicity of OTIF lies a worrying intellectual poverty. Relying only on that indicator means confusing consequence with cause, result with control, measurement with understanding.

True Supply Chain professionals know that OTIF is just a thermometer. The performance of a supply network, a factory, or a major CMO cannot be reduced to delivery punctuality. It lies in process robustness, variability control, flow synchronization, quality of decision-making, and the ability to respond intelligently to the unexpected.

But of course, measuring these dimensions requires discernment, method, and above all, a management culture based on causes rather than symptoms. It’s far less “sexy” than waving a percentage in an executive committee meeting.

In many companies, OTIF has become the fig leaf covering a deep misunderstanding of how Supply Chains actually work. It’s brandished like a totem, discussed religiously every month, yet rarely questioned for what it truly reveals. A 98% OTIF can easily conceal an organization under stress, bloated inventories, absurd trade-offs, and frustrated customers.

The ignorant will settle for it, as OTIF gives them the illusion of rigor. The others — those who truly understand Supply Chain — see it for what it is: a useful signal, yes, but only when read within a systemic framework, connected to indicators of reliability, flexibility, collaboration, and governance.

OTIF should never be a goal. It’s a symptom. And as long as we confuse fever with disease, the Supply Chain will remain a fragile mechanism observed from afar, rather than a living system we understand, nurture, and help grow.

Emmanuel de Ryckel

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