Successful businesses spend a lot of time planning. And planning starts at the top. A business’s top executives begin the planning process by developing a strategy for the company that informs all the planning levels beneath it. The management team then reviews these plans and adds to them until they’re ready for implementation. To get a better understanding of this, let’s review a diagram of the planning levels within a business.

成功的企业会花费大量时间进行计划。计划从高层开始。企业的高层管理人员通过为公司制定战略来开展计划过程，该战略为公司下的所有计划层级提供信息。然后，管理团队审查这些计划并对其进行添加，直到准备实施这些计划。为了更好地理解这一点，让我们回顾一下企业内部的计划层级图。

 

This pyramid represents the four primary planning levels within a business. So let’s look at each level, what type of planning it covers, as well as the planning horizon, its focus, and who is involved at each level. As you can see, Strategic Planning is at the top of the pyramid. The APICS Dictionary defines the strategic plan as:

这个金字塔代表企业中的四个主要计划层级。那么让我们看看每个层级涵盖什么类型的计划，计划周期、它的重点，以及每个层级的参与者。如您所见，战略规划处于金字塔的顶端。APICS词典将战略计划定义为：

 

“The plan for how to marshal and determine actions to support the mission, goals, and objectives of an organization. Generally, includes an organization’s explicit mission, goals, and objectives and the specific actions needed to achieve those goals and objectives.”

“如何安排和确定行动以支持组织的使命、目标和目的的计划。通常包括组织的明确使命、目标和目的，以及实现这些目标和目的所需的具体行动。”

 

Developed by top management, this is an enterprise-wide strategy that defines the major financial goals and objectives the firm wants to attain over the next three to ten years. Not only that but it helps the business balance its objectives with the necessary resources to meet the challenges of changing markets. Plans are typically reviewed annually. Now, it is possible for them to be reviewed more frequently under extraordinary market conditions, but stability in a strategic plan is preferred.

这是一项由最高管理层制定的企业范围的战略，阐明了公司希望在未来三到十年内实现的主要财务目的和目标。不仅如此，它还有助于企业平衡其目标和必要的资源，以应对不断变化的市场挑战。计划通常每年审查一次。现在，在特殊的市场条件下，可以更频繁地对它们进行审查，但战略计划的稳定性是首选。

 

The next level down from strategic planning is Top Management Demand and Resource Planning. The APICS Dictionary defines this level of planning as:

战略计划的下一个层级是高层管理需求和资源计划。《APICS词典》将这种计划层级定义为：

 

“The set of functional plans (e.g., production plan, sales plan, marketing plan) synchronizing activities across functions that specify production levels, capacity levels, staffing levels, funding levels, and so on, for achieving the intermediate goals and objectives to support the organization’s strategic plan.”

“一系列功能计划（例如生产计划、销售计划、营销计划），用于跨职能部门同步活动，指定生产水平、产能水平、人员配备水平、资金水平等，以实现中间目的和目标，从而支持组织的战略规划。”

 

This level of planning has a horizon of 12 rolling months. A rolling calendar is a management tool that enables organizations to continuously plan over a set time horizon. In this case, one year. This means that as the current month ends, a new month is added to the end of the 12-month period. Because of this, these plans are typically reviewed monthly by top and middle management and developed at the product family level. According to the APICS Dictionary, a product family is:

此层级的规划范围为 12 个滚动月。滚动日历是一种管理工具，使组织能够在设定的时间范围内持续规划。在这种情况下，（时间范围为）一年。这意味着，随着当月的结束，将在 12 个月的末尾添加一个新月份。因此，这些计划通常由高层和中层管理人员每月审查一次，并在产品系列层级制定。根据《APICS词典》，产品系列是：

 

“A group of products or services that pass through similar processing steps, have similar characteristics, and share common equipment prior to shipment or delivery to the customer.”

“在装运或交付给客户之前经过相似的加工步骤、具有相似特性并共享公共设备的一组产品或服务。”

 

The third level down is operations management planning, sometimes just known as “operations planning.” Operations planning breaks down the product family plans from the sales and operations plan, as well as the production plan to the end item, or finished goods, level. This is typically done by the middle-to-lower-management team. On average, these operations plans have a horizon of 52 rolling weeks, with plans refreshed and reviewed weekly.

第三层级是运营管理计划，有时简称为“运营计划”。运营计划将产品系列计划从销售和运营计划以及生产计划分解到最终产品或成品层级。这通常由中下层管理团队完成。通常而言，基本上这些运营计划的跨度为 52 周，每周更新和审查计划。

 

And the final level is the execution of the plans that have cascaded down through the planning levels. This is where all the plans lead to and is linked to the daily execution of operations planning from the previous level.

最后一个层级是执行通过计划层级向下级联的计划。这是所有计划都指向的地方，并与前一个层级的运营计划的日常执行相关联。

 

Activities at the execution level include the release of both manufacturing orders and purchase orders. Typically, plan execution has a planning horizon of up to 90 rolling days. However, it’s reviewed daily by specialists in purchasing and production control.

执行层级的活动包括制造订单和采购订单的下达。通常，计划执行的规划范围最长为 90 个滚动日。然而，采购和生产控制专家每天都会对其进行审查。

 

Before we go, also note that as the planning levels move down the pyramid, the horizons shrink from 3 to 10 years to 90 days or less. The amount of detail also expands, from financial goals to specific manufacturing and purchase orders. And finally, the focus of the planners narrows from company-wide plans to specific customer orders.

在我们开始之前，还要注意，随着计划层级沿着金字塔向下移动，计划周期从 3 到 10 年缩短到 90 天或更短，细节量也有所扩大，从财务目标到具体的制造和采购订单。最后，计划人员的重点从公司范围的计划缩小到特定的客户订单。

 

Within each of the planning levels are a series of planning processes that flow from strategic planning to operations execution. Keep in mind that each stage is important for the complete planning process.

在每个计划层级中，都有一系列从战略规划到运营执行的计划流程。请记住，每个阶段对于整个计划过程都很重要。