This Role:We are currently seeking a
Director - Materials Planning & Inventory. This will be a full time,
hybrid role based at our
Grand Rapids, MI innovation center (hybrid = 2+ days/week in-person)
What You Will Do:The Director, Materials Planning & Inventory is the enterprise functional leader responsible for materials planning standards, inventory strategy, planning capability, governance, and network-wide inventory performance. The position establishes the system of work used across facilities and drives consistent planning disciplines, policies, metrics, business reviews, and corrective actions.
This role provides enterprise functional leadership, standards, governance, capability development, and accountability for outcomes. The role is broader than day-to-day inventory management and is designed to restore dedicated enterprise leadership over materials planning and inventory performance.
How You Will Do It:Enterprise Inventory Strategy & Governance- Develop and maintain enterprise inventory policies, segmentation, targets, and control frameworks.
- Establish governance for safety stock, reorder points, min/max settings, lot sizes, lead times, and related planning parameters.
- Define exception-management and approval processes.
- Align inventory strategy with service, growth, risk, and working capital objectives.
Materials Planning Excellence- Establish common materials planning, replenishment, scheduling, and execution standards.
- Develop standard work, planning calendars, review cadences, and role expectations.
- Drive consistent adoption of planning disciplines across facilities.
- Identify and address systemic process, data, and tool gaps.
Inventory Performance Management- Own enterprise visibility to DIO, turns, aging, excess, obsolete, slow-moving, and at-risk inventory.
- Lead root-cause analysis and corrective-action plans for material performance gaps.
- Drive inventory optimization initiatives across raw material, work-in-process, and finished goods.
- Report progress, risks, and required decisions to executive leadership.
Functional Leadership & Capability Development- Provide functional direction, coaching, and development to plant-based Material Managers and planning resources.
- Define competency expectations and training priorities.
- Lead an enterprise Materials Council and communities of practice.
- Support talent assessment, succession planning, and organizational capability development.
SIOP & Cross-Functional Integration- Represent materials planning and inventory in SIOP and related operating reviews.
- Translate demand, supply, capacity, and sourcing decisions into inventory implications and actions.
- Partner with Operations, Procurement, Finance, Sales, and Business Unit leadership.
- Escalate enterprise risks, trade-offs, and policy exceptions.
Systems, Data & Continuous Improvement- Establish data-quality expectations and governance for planning parameters and inventory master data.
- Support effective use of SAP, Oracle, planning applications, analytics, and future enterprise systems.
- Lead process improvement and automation opportunities.
- Develop consistent enterprise dashboards and performance reporting.
What We're Looking For: Required Qualification- Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain Management, Operations, Industrial Engineering, Business, or a related field.
- Ten or more years of progressive experience in supply chain, materials management, planning, inventory, manufacturing operations, or related disciplines.
- Five or more years of leadership experience in materials planning, inventory, supply chain, or operations.
- Demonstrated experience developing planning standards, inventory strategies, and performance-management systems across multiple facilities or business units.
- Experience leading inventory optimization, working capital, and cross-functional process-improvement initiatives.
- Strong knowledge of MRP, replenishment, production planning, inventory policy, and planning master data.
- Experience with ERP platforms such as SAP, Oracle, or comparable systems.
Preferred Qualifications- Master of Business Administration or other relevant advanced degree.
- APICS/ASCM certification, including CPIM or CSCP.
- Enterprise or multi-site manufacturing leadership experience.
- Experience implementing SIOP or Integrated Business Planning processes.
- Experience building functional governance models in a matrixed organization.
- Demonstrated success improving DIO, turns, aging, excess and obsolete inventory, service, and working capital.
- Experience with planning applications, advanced analytics, Power BI, and ERP transformation.
- Lean, Six Sigma, or related continuous-improvement certification.
What We Offer- 401(K) with match
- Thirteen Paid Holidays
- Paid Vacation
- Paid Personal Time Off
- Medical Insurance
- Dental Insurance
- Vision Insurance
- Long Term Disability Insurance
- Short Term Disability Insurance (variable per state)
- Life Insurance
- Flexible Spending Accounts
- Employee Assistance Plan
