Production Planner

Reporting to the Vice President of Supply Chain, the Production Planner will be responsible to meet EMPWR’s protein bar production goals relating to production scheduling, material planning, line capacity management, and inventory management to drive an efficient production line process to support operational, financial, and customer requirement goals. Additionally, the Production Planner (PP) is expected to help the business meet its sales, inventory management and operations objectives by using advanced analytical skills combined with a detailed understanding of production business operations to provide key performance measures and reports that drive focus on relevant production processes that support adherence and attainment.

The PP will provide direction and expertise to the production planning staff and manage processes to ensure streamlined production operations leading to customer satisfaction by planning rigid production schedules on a timely basis per customer product specifications and requirements. This position will also manage the development and implementation of master and individual production schedules which meet the requirements of the customer and the company. The position will recommend changes to planning processes to improve overall results, and communicate what needs to be accomplished while coordinating/integrating activities to achieve department planning goals. They will collaborate with Sales, Procurement, Production, and Customer Service to continuously improve product life cycle processes.

Responsibilities

• Establish and maintain the accuracy of planning and scheduling parameters in the ERP system and actively engage in the change management process.

• Understand customer demand requirements by interfacing with the sales team and customers.

• Create a rolling (12 month) master production plan; analyze and identify potential risks associated with the master production plan including production lead time.

• Responsible for leading the company’s Inventory and Operations Planning process and Rough-Cut Capacity Planning (RCCP) process.

• Align production and supply availability plans to anticipate and match forecasted and actual customer demand changes.

• Coordinate production schedules for the introduction of new materials and implementing existing materials

• Analyze production specifications and plant capacity data; perform calculations to determine manufacturing processes, tools, and human resource requirements.

• Coordinate with Production team to resolve scheduling and line capacity issues; proactively identify potential Production issues with delivery and develop recovery plans as necessary

• Coordinate with Procurement, Buyers, and Material Planning to ensure material supply and subcontract activities are in line with production plans

• Provide Key Performance Indicators and trends to management and perform root cause analyses on production deviations including On-Time Delivery, Actual vs. Scheduled Productions and Master Schedule Stability.

• Monitors and manages inventory levels in relation to demand for customer orders, contracts and/or forecasts to ensure inventory is positioned for customer order fulfillment.

• Lead and coordinate Year-end Physical inventory activities with accounting and outside auditors.

• Prepare a 3-to-5-year long-term capacity analysis.

Qualifications

• 5 to 10 years of experience in production planning, scheduling, and/or MRP planning within a food manufacturing or CPG environment

• Must be highly proficient with Microsoft Office applications including Excel, Word and PowerPoint, and have experience with advanced Excel functions (including Pivot Tables, VLOOKUP, Power Queries, Modelling)

• Power BI and Macro programming are a plus.

• SAP ERP system knowledge is required with demonstrated MRP & Production Planning module experience

• Strong analytical, organizational, and problem-solving skills