Position Summary: The Production Planning & Purchasing Manager is responsible for leading all procurement and production planning activities to ensure material availability, accurate scheduling, and uninterrupted production flow. This role oversees a team of four Buyer/Planners and two Planner Assistants, ensuring that each Buyer/Planner manages both purchasing and production planning for two assigned production lines.
The manager drives material readiness, production schedule accuracy, supplier performance, and SAP data integrity. This position partners closely with Operations, Quality, Engineering, and Warehouse teams to ensure production is fully supported with the right materials at the right time.
Purchasing & Procurement Leadership- Purchase Order Management - Oversee creation, release, and management of purchase orders in SAP based on MRP, forecasts, and production requirements.
- Supplier Management - Maintain strong supplier relationships to ensure reliable delivery, quality compliance, and responsiveness.
- Cost Control & Sourcing - Support sourcing initiatives, negotiate pricing, and identify cost-reduction opportunities.
- Lead Time Governance - Monitor and adjust supplier lead times to maintain accurate planning data.
- Supplier Issue Resolution - Partner with Quality to resolve supplier non-conformances and performance issues.
- Champion SAP data integrity (pricing, lead times, vendor master, material master).
Production Planning & Scheduling- Master Production Schedule Oversight - Ensure production schedules are accurate, feasible, and aligned with material availability.
- Daily/Weekly Production Control - Lead planning activities to ensure production orders are released, sequenced, and executed on time.
- Material Availability Assurance - Ensure all required materials are on-hand to support scheduled production.
- Capacity & Constraint Planning - Identify bottlenecks and adjust schedules to optimize throughput.
- Cross-Functional Alignment - Collaborate with Operations, Warehouse, and Quality to ensure smooth execution of the production plan.
- Participate in daily/weekly production meetings to communicate risks, shortages, and recovery plans.
Team Leadership
- Manage and develop a team of 4 Buyer/Planners and 2 Planner Assistants.
- Assign line ownership: each Buyer/Planner manages purchasing + planning for two production lines.
- Balance workload, coach team members, and build capability in planning and procurement.
- Create and maintain standard work for all planning and purchasing processes.
KPI Management & Reporting- Maintain dashboards and reports for:
- Material availability
- Production schedule adherence
- Supplier OTD
- Inventory coverage
- Past due POs
- Excess & obsolete inventory
- Provide leadership with visibility into risks, trends, and required actions.
Continuous Improvement- Identify process inefficiencies and lead improvement projects across planning and purchasing.
- Support LEAN initiatives, root cause analysis, and workflow optimization.
- Improve accuracy of MRP, master data, and planning parameters.
Inventory & Cost Management
- Monitor inventory levels to support production without excess.
- Reduce excess/obsolete inventory through proactive planning and supplier collaboration.
- Partner with Finance and Warehouse to ensure accurate valuation and tracking of materials.
- Support budgeting, cost planning, and spend analysis.
- Other responsibilities as outlined by management.
Physical Demands:- Must be able to remain in a stationary position for extended periods of time.
- The worker occasionally operates a computer and other office machinery such as a calculator, copy machine, and computer printer.
- Expressing or exchanging ideas by means of the spoken word. Those activities in which they must convey detailed or important spoken instructions to other workers accurately.
- Perceiving the nature of sounds at normal speaking levels with or without correction. Ability to receive detailed information through oral communication, and to make the discriminations sound.
- The worker is required to have close visual activity to perform an activity such as preparing and analyzing data and figures, transcribing, viewing a computer terminal, extensive reading, and visual inspection involving small defects.
- Visual/hearing ability is sufficient to quickly analyze and comprehend written and verbal communication on all business documents.
- Repetitive motion such as substantial movements (motions) of the wrists, hands and/or fingers.
- Able to lift 50 pounds occasionally, 25 - 50lbs consistently.
- The worker is required to have close visual acuity to perform an activity with or without assistance such as preparing and analyzing data and figures; transcribing; extensive reading; and viewing a computer terminal.
Workplace Requirements:- Actively practice safety in all aspects of the job.
- Know and practice proper use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).
- Know and recognize quality products and practices, and act when defects are identified.
- Maintain a positive work atmosphere by behaving and communicating in a manner that promotes respect and teamwork between coworkers, customers, vendors, supervisor and management.
Education:- Bachelor's Degree in Supply Chain, Business, or related field required
- Must pass Basic Math & Reading Test with 70% or higher (if applicable)
Experience:- 5+ years experience in Purchasing, Procurement, or Supply Chain.
- Experience with SAP or similar ERP system.
- Strong understanding of MRP, supplier management, and inventory control.
- Demonstrated ability to lead teams and manage competing priorities.
- Strong analytical, communication, and negotiation skills.
- Experience with LEAN, continuous improvement, or process optimization preferred.
Additional Qualifications:- Strong problem-solving and decision-making skills.
- Ability to work cross-functionally and influence without authority.
- High attention to detail and commitment to data accuracy.
- Ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously.
