Job Title: Planning and Inventory Manager
Reports To: Director of Planning and Logistics
Location: Waco, TX
Job SummaryThe Planning and Inventory Manager is responsible for production scheduling and inventory strategy across North America. This role ensures production schedules are aligned with customer demand, material availability, capacity, and operational priorities while maintaining appropriate inventory levels and working-capital performance. The position leads inventory planning, identifies and resolves material constraints, supports the SIOP process, and drives improvements in schedule adherence, inventory accuracy, excess and obsolete inventory, and planning processes.
Key Responsibilities- Develop and execute inventory strategies across North America to support customer demand, production requirements, and working capital objectives
- Develop and maintain production schedules based on order priorities, material availability, manufacturing capacity, and operational requirements
- Coordinate with Production, Procurement, and other stakeholders to balance production priorities, address scheduling conflicts, and communicate schedule changes
- Monitor production schedule adherence and identify material shortages, capacity constraints, and other risks that may affect planned production
- Establish inventory targets, policies, and controls, including safety stock, minimum stock quantities, reorder parameters, and stocking strategies
- Lead inventory planning activities within the SIOP process, identifying projects shortages, excess inventory, capacity constraints, and other supply risks
- Analyze inventory levels, usage, lead times, and demand patterns to recommend appropriate stocking parameters
- Own cycle-count strategy and governance, including schedules, compliance, inventory accuracy, root-cause analysis, and corrective actions
- Lead initiatives to identify, reduce, and prevent slow-moving, obsolete, and excess inventory
- Monitor past-due orders and material shortages, working with Procurement, Production Warehousing, and other functions to resolve constraints
- Maintain and improve inventory, past-due, procurement, and service reporting through Epicor, Power Bi and Excel
- Ensure the accuracy and reliability of inventory data, reports, dashboards, and system integrations
- Provide inventory analysis and recommendations to leadership, including trends, risks, corrective actions, and opportunities for improvement
- Lead continuous improvement efforts related to inventory management, planning processes, reporting, and data quality
- Serve as the primary subject-matter expert for inventory settings, discrepancies, controls, and planning parameters within Epicor
- Develop standardized inventory processes and performance metrics across locations
QualificationsRequired
- Bachelors degree in Supply Chain, Operations Management, Logistics, Computer Science, or Engineering
- Strong analytical and problem solving skills, with the ability to identify root causes and develop corrective actions
- Proficiency with Microsoft Office, particularly PowerPoint and Excel
- Experience developing and monitoring operational KPIs, reports, and dashboards
- Strong written and verbal communication skills
- Ability to travel up to 25% within North America
Preferred
- Demonstrated experience developing and managing production schedules based on order priorities, material availability, and manufacturing capacity
- Experience establishing and managing inventory, including safety stock, minimum and maximum quantities, and excess and obsolete inventory
- Exposure to ERP system(s)
- Experience with Power BI or other data visualization and business intelligence tools
- APICS CPIM, CSCP Certification
