Production Planner

Responsibilities

• Plan production according to the Master Production Schedule (MPS) and Material Requirements Plan (MRP) requirements, including but not limited to work order creation, on-going maintenance, and variance reconciliation.
• Publish production schedules and assure adherence by working with all functional areas to ensure proper and timely material flow to meet production requirements.
• Follow Manufacturing Routers to have products built per print or reworked per instructions.
• Communicate, track, and expedite any material shortages or other problems that affect the production plan or sales order backlog.
• Manage capacity overruns in Assembly and Machine Shop by balancing machine and other resource demands.
• Communicate completion schedules of assigned products as required.
• Evaluate Engineering Change Notices (ECNs), and ensure proper implementation on assigned products including: Establish effectivity dates that appropriately balance cost impact and customer service.
• Initiate, monitor, and ensure closure on any purge, rework, and scrap actions consistent with ECN instructions.
• Evaluate projected costs of ECN implementations. Comprehensive analysis is often required.
• Determine total cost of ECN after implementation.
• Monitor and take action on past due work orders, cancel process messages, MRB balances, safety stock levels, and any other order act on recommendations.
• In assigned areas, utilize Lean / Demand flow skills to drive the replenishment of inventories throughout the process. This includes establishing control cycles and supermarket quantities.
• Participate in the evaluation of costs, methodology, and processes to streamline the materials flow through manufacturing.
• Absorb materials responsibilities and roles for assigned value streams.
• Establish, manage, and update control cycles and kanbans for assigned value streams.
• Manage build priorities based upon effective utilization of the Heijunka boards.
• Manage part lot sizes to help support the demand flow production process balancing cost with material coverage.
• Work to reduce set-up times/costs to increase capacity and the number of runs while decreasing the run quantities.
• Ensure the use of lean manufacturing tools such as continuous improvement, metrics reporting, 5S and visual controls.
• Plan the addition of new product demands on the machine shop resources and assess capacity shortfalls.
• Management of Material Master Data elements including but not limited to Procurement Type, MRP Controller, In house Production Time, Planned Delivery time, Schedule Margin key, Lot Size, and Replenishment Lead Time for Planning and/or purchasing.
• Planning responsibilities may be in Production Assembly and/or the Machine Shop.
• Other duties include the processing of Trade Show returns.

Qualifications & Requirements

• Requires 5 years of directly related experience.
• Associate degree or equivalent combination of education and experience with increasing level of responsibility.
• Ability to clearly express oneself verbally and in writing in the English language using good grammar, vocabulary, eye contact.
• Ability to communicate effectively with employees and other business contacts in a courteous and professional manner.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills to include strong presentation, project and organizational skills.
• Excellent computer skills including operating Windows based personal computers. Ability to efficiently and effectively use Microsoft products such as Outlook, Word, Excel.
• Shop Floor and Machine Shop Planning experience utilizing a state-of-the-art MRP system; SAP preferred.
• Analytical skills required for determining priorities, lot sizes, lead times, and shop floor schedules.
• Able to read and interpret MRP, bills of materials, routings, non-conforming materials reports, and other common manufacturing documents.
• Knowledge of computer applications such as EXCEL, Outlook, Word.
• Ability to be accurate, detail-oriented, and to perform in high pressure situations.
• Must be able to effectively interact with all functional areas, at all levels both verbally and in writing particularly Purchasing, Manufacturing, Production, Engineering, Stockroom, Cost Accounting, Shipping, and Sales Ops.
• APICS certification a plus.