The aggregate operations plan translates annual and quarterly business plans into broad labor and output plans for the intermediate term of 3 to 18 months.
The sales and marketing plans are typically developed separately from the aggregate operations plan as a way of cross-checking results to insure the integrity of assumptions about the future.
Aggregation in sales and operations planning is by groups of customers on the supply side and by product families on the demand side of the firm's supply chain.
The International Aggregate Planning Society (IAPS) has developed aggregate operations planning guidelines that are followed by a majority of manufacturing firms.
The widespread adoption of computing technology has led to the virtual abandonment of simple cut-and-try charting and graphical methods to develop aggregate operations plans.
The increasing complexity of modern operations management has made simple cut-and-try charting and graphical methods formerly used to develop aggregate operations plans impractical and obsolete.