Planner Buyer

About the role

The Planner Buyer is responsible for planning, purchasing, and controlling inventory to ensure materials, components, and supplies are available to support production schedules, customer requirements, and operational needs. This role balances service levels, cost, supplier performance, and inventory investment by using demand forecasts, material requirements planning, purchasing processes, and inventory control practices to prevent shortages, reduce excess stock, and improve overall supply chain efficiency.

Responsibilities

• Plan and purchase assigned materials, components, finished goods, and supplies to meet production, customer, and operational demand.
• Maintain inventory levels daily to maintain appropriate stock availability while minimizing excess, obsolete, and slow-moving inventory.
• Review material requirements planning outputs, demand forecasts, min/max levels, safety stock, reorder points, lead times, and open purchase orders to ensure inventory accuracy and continuity of supply.
• Convert approved requisitions or planning recommendations into purchase orders and follow through from order placement to receipt.
• Expedite, defer, cancel, or adjust purchase orders based on changing demand, supplier performance, inventory position, and production priorities.
• Partner with production, warehouse, customer service, sales, engineering, quality, and finance teams to align purchasing plans with business requirements.
• Identify potential shortages, supply disruptions, or inventory imbalances and communicate risks with recommended corrective actions.
• Maintain accurate planning and purchasing data, including supplier lead times, pricing, order quantities, safety stock, item master data, and inventory parameters.
• Support cycle counts, physical inventory activities, root-cause analysis, and reconciliation of inventory discrepancies.
• Analyze inventory trends, usage history, forecast accuracy, supplier reliability, and demand changes to improve inventory planning decisions.
• Work with suppliers to confirm delivery dates, resolve late shipments, address quality issues, negotiate pricing, and improve on-time delivery performance.
• Recommend inventory control improvements that reduce carrying costs, improve turns, prevent stockouts, and strengthen material availability.
• Track and report key purchasing and inventory metrics, including inventory turns, stockouts, excess inventory, supplier on-time delivery, purchase price variance, and order accuracy.
• Ensure purchasing activities comply with company policies, approval requirements, ethical standards, and applicable regulations.

Qualifications

Requirements include a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Supply Chain Management, or a related field. Relevant work experience in inventory management, procurement, or supply chain operations is preferred. Strong analytical skills, proficiency in Microsoft Office, and knowledge of ERP systems are beneficial. Must have excellent communication, problem-solving, and organizational skills.