Material Planner

Job Summary

The Material Planner (Buyer) plays a vital role in ensuring timely delivery of materials to support production operations by managing material planning activities from placing purchase orders, follow up with suppliers to deliver product to production assembly lines and/or service parts.  Has a direct impact on ensuring the plant has access to the inputs, materials, goods, and services it needs for its current and future operations.  Plans engineering change and coordinates into production when appropriate. Provides other support to production and management as required.

Responsibilities

• Perform timely, cost-conscious procurement of production/inventory/MRO items.
• Receive and analyze requisitions to determine quantity, specifications, and delivery requirements.
• From approved supplier list, recommend and select suppliers to fulfill scheduled plant deliveries.
• Responsible for the onboarding of new selected suppliers relative to material planning.
• Ensure optimal inventory levels and safety stock are maintained for their parts.
• Ensure that Exception Messages (Expedites/De-Expedites/Cancels) are managed regularly and consistently to ensure that the delivery and inventory needs of the business are met.
• Ensure that all Procedures relating to PO approvals / LOA / documentation/archiving are followed.
• Coordinate with Quality Assurance to resolve quality issues with suppliers.
• Maintain proactive shortage identification and management - help flag root causes & corrective actions.
• Identify total cost and cash flow opportunities with suppliers.
• Analyze and select parts for Kanban and Supplier replenishment.
• May lead and direct others to accomplish desired organizational objectives.
• Expedite deliveries to meet and exceed scheduled critical requirements.
• Maintain material plan at the time fence to ensure continuity of supply.
• Coordinate with production planners for solutions when parts cannot be delivered as promised.
• Maintain and continuously evaluate supplier performance and escalate to Procurement when issues occur.
• Resolve invoicing discrepancies with suppliers and accounting.
• Analyze material and capacity availability to provide customer promise dates for sales orders.
• Maintains item master lead time information based upon process improvements, current constraints, and total current demand by product family, and priority information.
• Manage internal and SOMI/VMI material to meet schedules.
• Interface with required functional groups to resolve challenging delivery requirements.
• Communicate forecasts and replenishment plans to supplier.
• Review open requirements, monitoring vendor performance and expediting where necessary. Ensure that problems relating to delivery, quality or pricing are promptly conveyed to the supplier and resolved in a timely manner.
• Productivity: identify and implement cost reduction/productivity projects to meet the corporate initiatives/goals. Maintain pipeline and financial records for reporting and tracking productivity.

Basic Qualifications

• BA/BS degree or 3+ year’s minimum planner/buyer manufacturing experience is preferred.
• Considerable knowledge of industry related supply base.
• Skilled in production and supplier scheduling.
• Knowledgeable of supplier processes and capabilities.
• Computer proficient with MRP and Microsoft Office applications.
• Experience with rate based or flow line (non-MRP) and job shop manufacturing environments.
• Experience in operations, inventory management, MRP and lean manufacturing processes.
• Experience with visual management systems.

Key Competencies

Absolute KEY skills needed for role

• Oracle MRP and Microsoft Excel experience required

• Manufacturing or distribution experience

• Experience as a material planner/buyer