We are looking for a results-driven Planning Manager to lead our planning function in a high-mix, high-volume manufacturing environment. Reporting to the General Manager, this role is responsible for translating customer demand into executable production plans, optimizing capacity and material availability, and driving on-time delivery.
The ideal candidate is a firm, decisive and assertive leader who can operate with urgency, challenge the status quo, and make sound decisions in a fast-paced and constantly changing environment. You will work closely with cross-functional teams to resolve constraints, manage priorities and ensure the business delivers to customer commitments.
Responsibilities
- Lead and develop a team of planners, providing clear direction, coaching, performance management and capability development.
- Review customer demand, forecasts and backlog to establish priorities and optimize production output and customer lead times.
- Develop and maintain realistic production plans aligned with customer demand, capacity, material availability and business priorities.
- Ensure timely material availability to support production schedules and customer requirements.
- Work closely with Procurement, Suppliers and Warehouse teams to manage material lead times, shortages and delivery risks.
- Partner closely with Manufacturing, Procurement, Engineering, Quality, Logistics and Customer Operations to align priorities and ensure execution readiness.
- Ensure production plans are achievable and aligned with actual shop-floor capacity, constraints and operational readiness.
- Manage order execution and delivery performance, ensuring accurate planning and reliable customer commitment dates.
- Act as the key planning interface for issue resolution, priority setting, trade-off decisions and change-impact assessments.
- Proactively identify risks such as capacity constraints, material shortages, supplier delays and schedule disruptions, and drive timely mitigation plans.
- Strengthen planning processes, data quality and system utilization to improve forecast accuracy, schedule stability and supply reliability.
- Drive continuous improvement in planning effectiveness, inventory performance, production flow and customer service.
- Foster a culture of accountability, ownership, urgency, collaboration and continuous improvement
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain, Engineering, Operations Management, Business or a related discipline.
- 7+ years of experience in production or materials planning within a manufacturing or industrial environment. Experience in high-mix, high-volume contract manufacturing is strongly preferred.
- Proven people leadership experience, including coaching, performance management and team development. Firm, assertive and results-oriented with the confidence to drive accountability and make difficult trade-off decisions.
- Comfortable operating in a fast-paced, complex and constantly changing environment with competing priorities.
- Demonstrated experience leading integrated planning activities across demand planning, supply planning, materials planning and production scheduling.
- Strong understanding of manufacturing operations, capacity planning, material availability and production scheduling.
- Strong analytical, problem-solving and decision-making skills, with the ability to act decisively under pressure.
- Strong stakeholder management skills and the ability to influence and challenge cross-functional teams when required.
- Strong communication and organizational skills, with the ability to manage multiple priorities and drive execution.
- Knowledge of Oracle, Power BI and VBA is preferred.
- Passion for innovation, process improvement and operational excellence.