Senior Material Planner

Aurora, CO | Manufacturing | Full-Time

$90,000 - $110,000

General Position Summary

We are seeking a motivated individual for our Aurora facility who thrives in a fast-paced environment, working with multiple projects and interdisciplinary teams. The Senior Material Planner ensures that the supply of materials meet the production schedule and minimum stock levels to ensure operational and production continuity. Able to deliver efficient, effective, and flexible solutions to meet production requirements. Maintains strong relationships both internally and externally to ensure supply of materials meets requirements. Decisions and results have an impact on the function and their success. The Senior Material Planner may take responsibility for ensuring materials are available for a complete section or for a more technically complex aspect of the production process. Individuals in this position may have people and budgetary responsibilities.

Essential Job Functions

The following represents a representative sample of essential functions and responsibilities for the position. This list is not exhaustive, and additional duties and responsibilities may be assigned as required by the position and business
  • Schedule and control the supply of materials/components to meet production requirements and minimum stock levels
  • Plan, develop, implement, and evaluate processes for material delivery from supplier to point of fit
  • Assess volume requirements against planning assumptions
  • Day-to-day order management and management of deliveries
  • Understand and manage risks to minimize impact on production schedule
  • Take follow up actions in relation to material shortages that affect production
  • Actively contribute to the development and support of material planning processes and benchmark against best practice and review ways to make continuous improvements
  • Implement all processes to agreed standards and targets and support continuous improvement initiatives, identifying areas of improvement
  • Ensure any Material Requirements Planning (MRP) system or IT system that is in place is accurate and up to date and resolve any issues as required
  • Monitor the integrity of Bill of Materials (BOM) and manage inventory accuracy
  • Monitor and control inventory levels against agreed target levels
  • Minimize obsolete stock and ensure business is left with minimum liability
  • Support inventory checks to validate inventory accuracy
  • Create regular statistical reports and analysis and update others in the organization

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

  • Mentor and coach Planners, Buyers and Assistant Buyers to enhance their career and professional development
  • Collaborate with internal and external stakeholders to forecast, plan, and facilitate on-time materials to the production line as and when required, avoiding disruption to production
  • Work with cross functional teams to deliver effective solutions
  • Create and issue forecasts to suppliers
  • Generate and communicate supplier material delivery schedules to ensure they reflect requirements and meet demands
  • Develop and maintain good relationships with suppliers and ensure demand for materials is met and deliveries made on time
  • Design, develop and implement processes and work with suppliers on continuous improvement initiatives
  • Support assessment and sourcing of suppliers in conjunction with members of the purchasing team
  • Support supplier meetings and negotiations to ensure demand for materials is met
  • Resolve supplier concerns and evaluate supplier performance in conjunction with members of the purchasing team
  • Work collaboratively and support negotiations and engage with stakeholders and suppliers regarding new projects, supplies and initiatives and advise of impact of change on supply chain availability and production activities
  • Stay current and up to date on any changes that may affect the supply and demand of needed products and materials and advise others of any impact
  • Attend meetings and update others on issues or concerns, particularly when there is a risk which could prevent the company meeting customer demands or where there are over capacity concerns
  • Support product change requests and review and communicate the impact on strategic capacity and supply chain plans
  • Build, maintain and manage both supplier and internal relationships and ensure good communications
  • ISO 9001:2015 / Quality Management System
  • Seeks continuous improvement
  • Strong written and oral communication skills
  • Fluent in written and spoken English
  • Strong negotiation, interpersonal and influencing skills
  • Intermediate awareness and knowledge of manufacturing 
  • Knowledge of project coordination and logistics 
  • External client relations skills; ability to form and maintain good relationships internally and externally
  • Commercial and financial awareness, with a full understanding of the impact of failure with regards to business costs, production targets and fulfilment of customer orders
  • Results orientated and organized with the ability to plan and deliver against deadlines
  • Strong analytical, planning, and problem-solving skills; numerically astute with proven problem-solving skills
  • Project management skills
  • Excellent attention to detail.
  • Exhibits a high degree of self-awareness
  • Proactively contributes to the team.
  • Resilient and self-motivated, can easily adapt to rapidly changing situations and environments
  • College level business math skills
  • MS Office (in particular, Excel with pivot table skills), ERP (Epicor is plus), Fishbowl, PDX, MS Teams

Education and Experience

  • Bachelor’s Degree in Supply Chain Management, Business Administration, Engineering, or Related Field

  • CPIM Certification (Preferred)

  • 7+ years’ experience in material planning roles, minimum 2 years in a senior role
  • 5+ years’ experience with ERP systems
  • Experience working in ISO 9001-2015 environment (or similar quality management system platform)