Production Buyer Planner

Dentsply Sirona is the world’s largest manufacturer of professional dental products and technologies, with over a century of innovation and service to the dental industry and patients worldwide. The company develops, manufactures, and markets comprehensive solutions including dental and oral health products as well as other consumable medical devices under a strong portfolio of world-class brands.

About the role

The Buyer/Planner is accountable for the formal planning and execution of all tactical-level processes required to secure and manage raw materials, packaging materials, and semi-finished materials to align with the production plan. This includes scheduling and managing delivery of raw materials and planning production orders to ensure requirements are met and backorders are avoided.

Responsibilities

• Create, validate, and maintain a valid materials plan based upon the Master Production Schedule.
• Ensure the right materials are procured at the right time, quality, and quantity to minimize production cost, based on the material plan.
• Take immediate action on any items needing expedited, following up with suppliers on best possible delivery.
• Follow up with suppliers on any material that is past due.
• Communicate with manufacturing, plant technical, purchasing, and master scheduling personnel regarding supply problems and their resolutions.
• Lead resolution of short-term supply/demand imbalances for ingredients and packaging materials.
• Identify and initiate response to raw material service/quality complaints from manufacturing; initiate return material process involving QA and Sourcing.
• Participate in and provide data for evaluation of supplier service performance; work with sourcing and suppliers to improve performance.
• Manage the use of raw materials to ensure FIFO compliance and reduce risk of excess and obsolete (E&O) exposure.
• Participate in daily/weekly planning meetings and represent material plans as appropriate.
• Utilize system(s) of record to plan and execute raw material and semi-finished procurement; identify issues where appropriate.
• Maintain accurate raw material and supplier master data, including planning parameters such as order quantities, lead times, and safety stocks.
• Create production plans and orders based on forecasted needs, backorders, and site capacity.
• Create and maintain Bills of Materials (BOMs) for both new product development (NPD) and existing products.
• Work closely with production leads to ensure the production plan is on track and achieving targeted monthly compliance.
• Improve current processes to enhance site efficiency.
• Assist with various reporting regarding procurement and planning.
• Work with Engineering to release engineering batch requests for QA issues or NPD.
• Provide updates on backorder recovery timing to management and achieve the recovery plan.

Key Behaviors

• Actively articulates and promotes Dentsply Sirona’s vision and direction.
• Advocates on behalf of the customer; values-driven with an insistence on excellence.
• Promotes high performance, innovation, and continual improvement.
• Consistently meets company standards, ethics, and compliance requirements.
• Strong negotiation, collaboration, and influencing skills.
• Results-oriented with strong analytical skills.
• Excellent mathematical, statistical, and IT skills as they pertain to data extraction, manipulation, and modeling.
• Clear and effective communication with key stakeholders across multiple pay grades, socio-geographic areas, and functional expertise.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree preferred or minimum of 5 years (combined) experience in operations, scheduling, procurement, and/or planning.
• APICS CPIM Certification preferred.
• Six Sigma Green Belt or higher is preferred but not required.
• Minimum of 5 years of experience in operations, scheduling, procurement, and/or planning with a demonstrated record of success.

Skills

• Analytical, production planning, organizational, and implementation experience within supply chain.
• Strong command of ERP systems, statistical analysis tools, and Microsoft Office and Internet applications.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Critical thinker with a positive attitude in challenging environments.
• Driven to produce a quality product; goal-oriented.
• Ability to achieve goals through influencing others.
• Self-motivated with the ability to work independently and in a team environment.
• Ability to work with minimal supervision.