Senior Planning Analyst – Inventory Planning & Stocking Strategy

About the role

The Senior Planning Analyst will play a critical role in advancing Banner’s inventory planning capability and stocking program strategy. This role supports and drives processes, analytics, and cross-functional decision-making to improve in-stock levels at Banner and across distributor channels while balancing customer service, working capital, operational constraints, and product lifecycle priorities.

Responsibilities

• Support the development and execution of Banner’s stocking program strategy, including P/S/N stocking recommendations, min/max logic, demand segmentation, and service-level targets.
• Analyze inventory availability, forecast inputs, demand behavior, backlog, open sales orders, lead times, and distributor requirements to identify gaps in in-stock performance.
• Partner with Product Management and Commercial teams to align stocking decisions with product-family strategy, lifecycle stage, customer promise, distributor expectations, and revenue priorities.
• Work with Operations and Supply Chain teams to translate stocking strategy into executable replenishment, production, and material plans.
• Develop reporting and dashboards to monitor in-stock levels, inventory health, service levels, forecast quality, slow-moving inventory, excess exposure, and stocking-policy effectiveness.
• Identify root causes of stockouts, inventory imbalances, past-due backlog, slow-moving inventory, and unmanaged stocking drift; recommend corrective actions and process improvements.
• Support monthly forecast and inventory reviews, product-family health reviews, and cross-functional stocking governance forums.
• Evaluate demand patterns using segmentation methods such as ABC/XYZ, runners/repeaters/strangers, lifecycle stage, customer concentration, and revenue contribution.
• Recommend stocking policy updates, safety stock assumptions, replenishment parameters, and exception-handling rules based on data, business priorities, and operational feasibility.
• Cook with distributor-facing and regional teams to understand channel inventory needs, availability gaps, lead-time expectations, and communication requirements.
• Help build standard work, planning tools, and repeatable processes that improve inventory decision quality and reduce reliance on ad hoc analysis.
• Escalate material stocking risks, service-level tradeoffs, or inventory exposure issues with clear options, financial impact, and recommended next steps.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain, Operations, Business, Finance, Engineering, Data Analytics, or a related field.
• 5+ years of experience in demand planning, inventory planning, supply planning, operations analytics, commercial operations, or a related manufacturing environment.
• Strong analytical capability with experience translating large datasets into business insights, recommendations, and action plans.
• Working knowledge of ERP, MRP, forecasting, planning, or inventory optimization systems; experience with Oracle, GAINS, Qlik, Power BI, Excel, or similar tools preferred.
• Ability to work cross-functionally with Operations, Supply Chain, Product Management, Sales, Finance, Customer Care, and regional teams.
• Strong communication skills, including the ability to explain analytical findings, tradeoffs, risks, and recommendations to both technical and business audiences.
• Demonstrated ability to manage ambiguity, structure problems, drive follow-up, and influence decisions without direct authority.

Qualifications

• Experience in industrial manufacturing, automation, electronics, or distribution-supported business models.
• Familiarity with make-to-stock, configure-to-order, build-to-order, and engineer-to-order fulfillment models.
• Experience supporting SIOP, product lifecycle management, stocking strategy, distributor inventory programs, or product-family business reviews.
• Advanced Excel, data visualization, SQL, Power BI, Qlik, or similar analytics skills.
• APICS/ASCM CPIM, CSCP, or related supply chain certification preferred.