Demand Planner - Broadband Business Unit

About the role

The Demand Planner – Broadband Business Unit is one of two dedicated demand planners focused exclusively on AFL Product Solutions’ Broadband business, spanning its fiber-to-the-home (FTTH), access network, and service provider portfolio.

Responsibilities

• Demand Plan Ownership & Execution
• Own the end-to-end execution of the assigned Broadband portfolio demand planning cycle in line with the enterprise IBP cadence.
• Generate, refine, and publish statistical and consensus demand plans at the Customer x SKU x Month level.
• Cook up and publish timely, decision-ready Demand Review pre-reads for the assigned portfolio, contributing to a unified Broadband BU view alongside team peers.
• Forecasting & Forecast Quality
• Apply the enterprise statistical and consensus forecasting methodology to the assigned Broadband portfolio, including FTTH build cycles, service provider deployment programs, and channel/distribution demand patterns where applicable.
• Incorporate market intelligence, customer demand signals, lifecycle events, and commercial inputs into the demand plan.
• Drive continuous improvement in forecast accuracy and bias using Forecast Value Added (FVA) concepts, with transparent root-cause analysis and corrective actions, sharing learnings across the team.
• Enforce override governance: ensure judgmental adjustments are documented, justified, and demonstrably improve — not degrade — forecast quality.
• Publish clear assumptions, risks, and opportunities by planning horizon (near-term execution vs. mid/long-term outlook).
• Integrated Business Planning (IBP) Participation
• Participate in AFL’s Demand Review as one of the Broadband BU’s demand planning representatives.
• Ensure the assigned portion of the Broadband demand plan is reconciled with commercial, operational, and financial assumptions, with assumptions explicitly documented.
• Surface Broadband-specific risks, opportunities, and demand trade-offs through IBP governance forums for transparent escalation.
• Support maturation of IBP cadence, definitions, templates, and governance in line with Oliver Wight Class A principles.
• Team Collaboration & Consistency
• Operate as part of a dedicated Broadband demand planning team, coordinating with peer planners to maintain a unified approach to methodology, segmentation, assumptions, and reporting.
• Share market intelligence, customer insights, and forecast learnings across the team to strengthen the overall Broadband demand signal.
• Provide cross-coverage for peer planners during absences and peak cycles to ensure continuity of the demand planning cadence.
• Participate in team working sessions, peer reviews, and post-cycle retrospectives to drive shared continuous improvement and standardization across portfolios.
• Contribute to onboarding, documentation, and playbook development that strengthens the team’s collective capability.
• Award-winning Systems & Analytics
• Use AFL’s demand planning platform (SAP IBP, Kinaxis RapidResponse, or equivalent) to maintain the assigned Broadband demand plan and supporting analytics.
• Build and maintain Broadband demand planning dashboards and reporting, jointly with peer planners, for leadership visibility into demand trends and forecast performance.
• Partner with enterprise demand planning, IT, and data governance stakeholders to enforce planning hierarchies, master data standards, and data quality for the Broadband portfolio.
• Ensure Broadband demand planning outputs are versioned, auditable, and portable (effective dates, assumptions history) for consistent downstream consumption across the team.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain, Business, Engineering, Analytics, or related field.
• 3–5+ years of demand planning, supply chain, or related analytical experience in a manufacturing environment.
• Hands-on experience with a modern demand planning application (SAP IBP, Kinaxis RapidResponse, or comparable platform), including statistical forecasting and segmentation.
• Working knowledge of Integrated Business Planning, including the Demand Review process; familiarity with Oliver Wight Class A principles preferred.
• Strong analytical skills, including advanced Excel and exposure to BI / visualization tools.
• Clear written and verbal communication, with the ability to surface assumptions, risks, and trade-offs in cross-functional forums.
• Demonstrated ability to operate as part of a planning team — sharing methodology, standards, and learnings across peers — while owning an assigned portfolio end-to-end.
• Experience supporting broadband, telecom/service provider, FTTH/access network, or other high-growth, high-SKU portfolios is a meaningful plus.
• APICS CPIM or Oliver Wight IBP foundational training a plus.