Retail Demand & Manufacturing Planner

Role Summary

JOB DESCRIPTION Retail Demand & Manufacturing Planner role is accountable for converting retail demand into a stable, executable manufacturing plan while protecting customer service, plant stability, and total network.

Responsibilities

• Core Responsibilities

  • Review customer-provided forecasts, actual POs trends, open order demand, and customer priorities to build a clear demand picture
  • Translate forecast and POs information into executable supply plans and manufacturing schedules aligned with SIOP principles
  • Partner with Sales, Customer Service, Operations, and Materials teams to ensure demand changes are visible, understood, and reflected in planning decisions
  • Identify demand shifts, forecast gaps, customer order risk, and capacity constraints early enough to drive corrective action
  • Serve as the critical link between retail customer demand signals and plant execution
  • Support SIOP cadence by providing clear inputs on retail demand, capacity outlook, order coverage, inventory exposure, and delivery risk
  • Recommend network production placement, level-loading, and order prioritization decisions; escalate trade-offs for leadership approval when service, cost, capacity, or plant feasibility conflict
  • Ensure retail schedule decisions support SQDCCP performance and do not create avoidable safety, quality, labor, freight, or customer risk
  • Partner directly with plant manufacturing teams to convert retail demand into realistic daily, weekly, and monthly production schedules
  • Maintain schedule adherence and work with operations to resolve gaps impacting customer delivery
  • Drive proactive communication when schedule changes, capacity constraints, material shortages, or operational bottlenecks place customer delivery at risk
  • Execute planning discipline through the ASD Lean Operating System, including SQDCCP visibility, Tiered Management, visual controls, PDCA problem solving, and standard work
  • Evaluate total network capacity - not just single-plant capacity - to determine the best manufacturing location for customer orders
  • Identify opportunities to shift, level-load, or rebalance demand across the network to improve service, reduce bottlenecks, and optimize throughput
  • Partner with manufacturing and supply chain leadership to highlight capacity constraints, open capacity, and recommended order placement decisions
  • Support scenario planning for customer demand changes, surge volume, promotional activity, or short-term capacity disruptions
  • Own planning execution required to support on-time, in-full delivery performance for high-value retail customers
  • Track customer orders from demand signal through manufacturing execution and delivery readiness
  • Identify late, at-risk, short, or unfulfilled orders and coordinate cross-functional action to protect customer commitments
  • Work closely with customer service, logistics, operations, and materials teams to ensure customer priorities are visible and fulfilled
  • Support root cause analysis for missed shipments, partial deliveries, schedule misses, or customer service failures
  • Apply Lean principles to create stability, reduce firefighting, and improve flow across the retail order fulfillment process
  • Use standard work, visual management, and daily/weekly planning cadence to improve schedule discipline and execution visibility
  • Identify process gaps in forecasting, scheduling, order management, capacity planning, and customer delivery execution
  • Support continuous improvement projects that improve planning accuracy, delivery reliability, inventory alignment, and manufacturing flow
  • Escalate issues with clear problem statements, impact, root cause, countermeasures, and timing
  • Build strong working relationships with manufacturing, materials, customer service, logistics, sales, and leadership teams
  • Communicate clearly and early when customer delivery, schedule adherence, or capacity is at risk
  • Demonstrate strong follow-through, project ownership, and accountability for execution
  • Balances customer service needs with operational feasibility, capacity constraints, and network optimization
  • Maintains a continuous improvement mindset focused on service, schedule reliability, and process discipline
  • Challenges reactive order-by-order decision-making by using data, standard work, and network-level thinking to protect customer commitments and manufacturing stability

Qualifications

• QUALIFICATIONS

  • Bachelor’s degree in supply chain, Operations Management, Business, Industrial Engineering, or related field preferred
  • 5+ years of experience in production planning, manufacturing scheduling, supply chain planning, materials management, customer planning, or related manufacturing role
  • Experience supporting retail, high-volume, customer-facing, or make-to-order / make-to-stock manufacturing environments preferred
  • Strong understanding of SIOP, demand planning, production scheduling, capacity planning, and inventory flow
  • Ability to evaluate capacity across multiple manufacturing locations and recommend practical execution plans
  • Strong ERP/MRP knowledge and ability to work with planning parameters, work orders, demand signals, and production schedules
  • Demonstrated ability to manage priorities, communicate risks, and coordinate cross-functional action
  • Leverage Lean manufacturing or continuous improvement experience preferred
  • Strong communication skills with the ability to work with plant teams, customer service, logistics, sales, and leadership
  • Ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced, high-visibility customer service environment

Position Impact

This role is critical to ensuring the company delivers a high level of customer service to its most important retail customers. Success will be measured by how effectively the Scheduler/Planner converts customer forecast and POs demand into executable manufacturing schedules, optimizes available network capacity, protects on-time and in-full delivery, and drives proactive issue resolution. The position directly impacts customer satisfaction, schedule stability, manufacturing efficiency, inventory alignment, and retail fulfillment performance. By applying SIOP discipline, Lean planning principles, and strong cross-functional coordination, this role helps create a more reliable, responsive, and customer-focused supply chain.