Sales and Operations Planning Specialist IV

Nidec Automatic Feed

$80K — $110K *
Manufacturing & Automotive
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree or APICS / IBF certification preferred
  • Minimum 7 years of progressive experience in S&OP, manufacturing planning, supply chain, or operations
  • Proven experience balancing demand with manufacturing and material supply in a multi-plant environment
  • Deep understanding of finite capacity planning, manufacturing constraints, supplier lead times and material risk
  • Strong facilitation skills with the ability to drive alignment and make tradeoffs
  • Ability to influence without direct authority and challenge senior stakeholders when plans are not executable

Responsibilities

  • Lead the monthly S&OP process, translating demand into a constrained and executable supply plan
  • Facilitate cross?functional decision making when demand exceeds capacity or material availability
  • Document decisions, tradeoffs, and commitments to ensure follow?through across functions
  • Identify supplier and material risks and lead mitigation actions before they impact production
  • Own corrective actions for past due orders, schedule misses, and material shortages
  • Drive collaboration between manufacturing, supply chain, and procurement at the site level
  • Provide clear visibility to leadership on risks, gaps, and required decisions

Benefits

  • Opportunity to influence enterprise-level priorities
  • Engage with senior leadership and influence cross-functional teams
  • Chance to work in a dual-plant environment, enhancing coordination skills
  • Develop comprehensive S&OP strategies that will have lasting impact
  • Be a key player in improving organizational S&OP maturity and discipline
Full Job Description

Job Summary

The Sales and Operations Planning Lead is accountable for translating demand into an executable supply and manufacturing plan across Syracuse and Monterrey. This role ensures demand, production capacity, material availability, and procurement plans are aligned through a disciplined S&OP cadence that drives decisions, resolves constraints, and prevents past due orders.

The role serves as the single point of orchestration between Demand Planning, Manufacturing, Procurement, Supply Chain, and Plant Leadership. While demand signals are well understood, this position exists to ensure the organization can deliver against that demand through capacity balancing, material readiness, and corrective action execution at each plant.

Core Purpose is to ensure the right product is built, at the right plant, at the right time, with the right materials and to surface, escalate, and resolve gaps when that is not possible.

Job Description

SPECIFIC JOB RESPONSIBILITIES

  • End-to-End S&OP ownership and decision leadership
  • Lead the monthly S&OP process, translating demand into a constrained and executable supply plan
  • Facilitate cross‑functional decision making when demand exceeds capacity or material availability
  • Document decisions, tradeoffs, and commitments and ensure follow‑through across functions
  • Proven ability to partner with plant leadership to validate assumptions and surface bottlenecks early
  • Prevent local or siloed planning by enforcing enterprise‑level priorities
  • Align procurement plans to the approved S&OP supply plan and demand priorities
  • Identify supplier and material risks and lead mitigation actions before they impact production
  • Ensure material constraints are visible and addressed as part of S&OP, not as reactive expedites
  • Own corrective actions for past due orders, schedule misses, and material shortages
  • Identify root causes, assign ownership, and track actions to closure
  • Embed learnings into future planning cycles to prevent repeat issues
  • Establish a consistent S&OP operating rhythm and standard planning assumptions at both plants (Syracuse and Monterrey).
  • Drive collaboration between manufacturing, supply chain, and procurement at the site level
  • Ensure both plants are executing against the same plan, priorities, and metrics
  • Own S&OP KPIs including past due, schedule adherence, capacity utilization, and plan vs. actual variance
  • Provide clear visibility to leadership on risks, gaps, and required decisions
  • Strengthen S&OP maturity, standardization, and discipline over time
  • Seasoned professional; works under limited supervision
  • Works independently on a wide range of moderately complex projects and may be responsible for entire projects or processes within team
  • May contribute to the development of goals and planning efforts for the department

Additional Job Details

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

  • Communicates with senior leadership and employees within and outside of department and/or job family on matters that require explanation, interpretation and/or advising; may communicate with external clients or partners depending upon the job area
  • Influences employees within the business unit to agree and align on new concepts, practices and approaches
  • Responsible for moderate to significant improvements of processes, procedures, or systems to contribute to the performance of the team
  • Problems are moderately complex and may impact multiple departments and/or job family
  • Coaches, reviews and delegates work to other professionals
  • Manages end-to-end projects or processes
  • Proven experience balancing demand with manufacturing and material supply in a multi plant environment
  • Deep understanding of: Finite capacity planning, manufacturing constraints, supplier lead times and material risk.
  • Strong facilitation skills with the ability to drive alignment and make tradeoffs
  • •Ability to influence without direct authority and challenge senior stakeholders when plans are not executable
  • Experience leading corrective actions and driving operational accountability
  • Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree or APICS / IBF certification preferred
  • Minimum 7 years of progressive experience in S&OP, manufacturing planning, supply chain, or operations

Languages

  • English mandatory. Other language skills are helpful.

CORE COMPETENCIES

  • Sales and Operations Planning Leadership
  • Supply Chain Strategy and Network Optimization
  • Capacity Planning and Production Location Analysis
  • Cross Functional Collaboration and Influence
  • Forecasting and Demand Planning Support
  • New Program and Product Launch Execution
  • Performance Metrics and KPI Management
  • Cost to Serve Analysis
  • Process Improvement and Optimization
  • End to End Project and Process Management
  • Strategic Thinking and Business Acumen
  • Problem Solving Across Multiple Functions
  • Communication with Senior Leadership and Stakeholders
  • Coaching, Delegation, and Team Development
  • Independent Decision Making and Accountability

Work Shift Schedule

No Soliciting

Nidec will not accept unsolicited resumes from individual recruiters or third party recruiting agencies in response to Nidec job postings. No fee will be paid to third parties who submit unsolicited candidates directly to our hiring managers. Pre-approval from the Nidec Talent Acquisition team is required before any external candidate can be submitted and such candidate must be submitted to the Nidec Talent Acquisition team.

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