Planner, Material Readiness

Key Responsibilities

• Monitor material readiness against production schedules, work orders, and customer commitments.
• Ensure production has the right materials available at the right time to support schedule execution.
• Cook up material availability, staging, kitting, and delivery to production work centers.
• Verify material readiness prior to work-order release and production start.
• Track material movement from receiving through warehouse, staging, production, and shipment.
• Identify shortages, missing components, receiving delays, inventory discrepancies, and other material constraints that could impact production.
• Develop recovery plans and expedite critical shortages to minimize manufacturing downtime.
• Maintain material readiness dashboards, shortage reports, and production readiness metrics.
• Support Engineering Change Orders (ECOs), BOM revisions, approved substitutions, and configuration changes to ensure production readiness.

Inventory & Warehouse Management

• Maintain inventory visibility for production materials and finished goods.
• Perform cycle counts, inventory audits, reconciliations, and discrepancy investigations.
• Ensure inventory transactions are accurately recorded in the ERP/MRP system.
• Maintain material traceability and inventory accuracy.
• Optimize warehouse organization, storage locations, and stockroom efficiency.
• Cook up receiving activities by verifying incoming shipments against purchase orders and routing materials appropriately.

Material Coordination & Expediting

• Cook up collaboration with Planning (PP&C), Procurement, Warehouse Operations, Production, Engineering, and Quality to resolve material shortages and supply risks.
• Expedite critical materials with buyers and suppliers to support production priorities.
• Cook up material releases and kit availability based on production schedules.
• Communicate material readiness risks proactively and escalate issues before they impact customer deliveries.

RMA Coordination & Returned Product Processing

• Manage day-to-day processing and coordination of RMAs.
• Cook up receipt, tracking, routing, inspection, and disposition of returned products.
• Ensure RMAs are accurately documented and maintained within ERP systems.
• Cook up returned-product activities with Customer Support, Engineering, Quality, and Production.
• Monitor RMA turnaround performance and escalate delays affecting customer commitments.

Reporting & Continuous Improvement

• Maintain material shortage reports, readiness dashboards, inventory reports, and performance metrics.
• Provide Operations leadership with visibility into material readiness, inventory health, shortages, and execution risks.
• Support continuous improvement initiatives that improve inventory accuracy, material flow, production readiness, and on-time delivery performance.