Lead Production Planner

About the role

The Lead Production Planner owns the short- to medium-term production plan for the North American operation, balancing customer service, inventory, capacity, labor, and cost so demand changes and supply risks are caught and communicated early. The role leads the Production Planning Team and partners with the Global Demand and Planning Manager and cross-functional teams to strengthen S&OP and drive planning improvements.

Responsibilities

• Lead North American production planning and maintain executable short- to medium-term production plans that balance customer priorities, inventory targets, capacity, labor, and operational efficiency.
• Translate demand forecasts, customer orders, inventory positions, and production constraints into clear manufacturing schedules and resource requirements.
• Monitor work orders through each stage of execution, identify deviations from plan, and coordinate corrective action to support on-time, in-full delivery.
• Analyze product, process, routing, and bill-of-material data to determine manufacturing requirements and identify opportunities to reduce lead times.
• Develop and maintain capacity plans, demand profiles, and scenarios to identify short-, medium-, and long-term constraints.
• Optimize inventory across work in progress, pre-pack, finished goods, contract stock, and help drive raw material availability through MRP.
• Monitor aged, excess, and at-risk inventory and work with relevant functions to agree corrective actions.
• Align resource plans with forecast demand and operational capability to support effective capacity and labor utilization.