SOFP is typically done every month
and is a comprehensive, company-wide
process for short- and medium-term planning.
SOFP is a formal and rigorous planning
process completed for each value
stream. Sales and marketing provide forecasts
for the number of products that will
be sold by a value stream each month for
the next 12 months (for example). These are high-level forecasts of total unit sales,
although sometimes it is helpful to go one level down and forecast by product families
within a value stream. The operations people provide forecasts of the value stream
capacity each month for the next 12 months, and product engineering brings the plans for new product introductions.