Senior Planner

Job Summary

The Planner III is a key role responsible for creating, maintaining, and executing the Master Production Schedule (MPS) based on production capacity, material availability, and contractual requirements. This senior position requires high-level coordination with production, materials management, program offices, and contracts departments to ensure alignment and on-time delivery of products. The Planner III drives process improvements, manages complex scheduling challenges, and reports on key performance indicators.

Job Responsibilities

• Create and maintain the Master Production Schedule (MPS), ensuring alignment with available production capacity, material availability, and customer contractual requirements.
• Coordinate across departments (Production, Engineering, Materials, Program Office) to obtain consensus and agreement before the execution of the MPS.
• Monitor performance against the MPS and contract obligations, creating tracking reports and metrics.
• Collaborate with engineering, quality, program management, contracts, and legal to ensure alignment with program objective and contract requirements.
• Consolidate demand for all purchase requisitions required for production needs.
• Ensure the smooth transition of product flow from production stages through packaging and final shipping.
• Ensure timely closeout of old programs/jobs, including the final disposition of all requisitions, purchase orders, and residual inventory.
• Improve current systems, functions, and daily operations to more effectively meet departmental and organizational goals.
• Execute procurement activities for high-value, technically complex components and assemblies, in accordance with FAR, DFARS, ITAR and company policy.
• Analyze MRB/ERP demand and issue RFQs, RFPs, and POs to qualified suppliers.
• Evaluate supplier quotes for technical compliance, cost, and delivery; perform cost/price analysis and support fact finding and negotiation efforts.
• Develop and maintain strong supplier relationships to support long-term strategic sourcing initiatives.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or a minimum of 5+ years of demonstrated experience in production planning or a related field.
• Extensive experience in production planning, master scheduling, and project material management.
• Solid understanding of business processes and functional inter-relationships within a manufacturing environment.
• Excellent understanding of Material Requirements Planning (MRP) systems.
• Working knowledge of FAR/DFARS, ITAR, and other US Government procurement regulations.
• Proven ability to negotiate, manage supplier contracts, and resolve supplier performance issues.
• Skilled in the use of Microsoft Office applications, including Excel (specifically Pivot Tables), PowerPoint, Word, and SharePoint.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to support, communicate, and defend the mission, values, and culture of the company.