About the Role
We are seeking a highly capable Planning Director to lead our enterprise-wide planning organization across a multi-site manufacturing network. This role will oversee 4 Regional Planning leaders and a broader team of 30+ planners supporting the production of building products made from aluminum, steel, copper, and plastics.
The Planning Director will play a critical leadership role in driving excellence in raw material planning, production scheduling, constraints management, and ERP-enabled planning processes. This individual will ensure planning strategies and execution are aligned to support customer service, operational efficiency, and working capital performance.
This role requires a strong blend of strategic leadership and hands-on planning expertise in complex manufacturing environments.
Key Responsibilities
Lead the Planning Organization
- Lead, coach, and develop a team of Planning Managers and a distributed network of planners across multiple sites
- Establish standardized processes, clear accountability, and performance expectations across the planning function
- Build team capability in material planning, scheduling, ERP utilization, and data-driven decision making
Drive Raw Material Planning Excellence
- Own enterprise-wide planning strategies for key raw materials including aluminum, steel, copper, and plastics
- Ensure strong execution of material planning processes to maintain supply continuity while optimizing inventory levels
- Partner with Procurement to align supply strategies with market conditions, supplier constraints, and lead times
- Improve planning parameters such as safety stock, reorder points, and planning horizons
Optimize Production Scheduling & Constraints Management
- Lead development and execution of production scheduling strategies across all manufacturing sites
- Ensure schedules effectively account for constraints including capacity, labor, changeovers, material availability, and maintenance
- Drive improvements in schedule attainment, throughput, and plant-level execution
- Build proactive constraint and bottleneck management capabilities
Strengthen ERP & Planning Systems Discipline
- Serve as the functional leader for planning within ERP/MRP systems
- Drive data accuracy, process compliance, and effective system utilization across sites
- Partner with IT to enhance planning system capabilities and reporting tools
- Enable more efficient, exception-based planning processes
Enable Cross-Functional Alignment
- Partner with Operations, Procurement, Customer Service, and Commercial teams to align supply and demand plans
- Support S&OP / integrated business planning processes
- Lead planning response during supply disruptions, demand shifts, or capacity constraints
Deliver Performance & Continuous Improvement
- Establish and manage KPIs including service levels, schedule adherence, inventory performance, and material availability
- Lead root cause analysis and corrective actions to improve planning outcomes
- Drive continuous improvement and standardization across the planning network
Qualifications
Required
- Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain, Operations, Engineering, or related field
- 10+ years of experience in supply chain planning, materials planning, and/or production scheduling
- 5+ years of leadership experience, including managing managers and multi-site teams
- Willingness to travel up to 75%
- Deep expertise in:
- Raw material planning and inventory strategies
- Production scheduling and capacity/constraints management
- ERP/MRP systems and planning process execution
- Proven success in a complex manufacturing environment
Preferred
- Experience in building products, metals, plastics, or similar industrial manufacturing
- Familiarity with commodity-based raw materials (aluminum, steel, copper, resins)
- Experience with ERP systems such as SAP, Oracle, JD Edwards, or Microsoft Dynamics
