Job Summary:

Lead production planning, material planning, inventory management, and planning process improvement in a fast-paced medical device manufacturing environment. This role requires strong analytical capability, inventory risk management expertise, and the ability to influence and align cross-functional stakeholders to balance customer demand, material availability, inventory risk, and production capacity.

Responsibilities: 

Capacity Planning & Resource Management

• Develop short-term and long-term capacity plans to support customer demand, business growth, and new product introductions.
• Identify capacity constraints related to manpower, equipment, cleanroom space, and critical production processes.
• Collaborate with Production, Engineering, Global sourcing and PMO to ensure adequate capacity and resource readiness for validation builds, NPI activities, and commercial production.
• Balance production capacity, material availability, customer demand, and operational constraints to achieve delivery, inventory, and business objectives. 

Planning & Inventory Leadership

• Lead production and material planning functions to ensure customer delivery commitments.
• Develop planning strategies that balance customer service, inventory investment, forecast variability, and material availability.
• Review demand trends, forecast changes, and supply risks to support effective planning decisions. Lead demand and supply reviews to identify risks and develop mitigation actions.
• Drive inventory optimization and E&O reduction initiatives.
• Drive initiatives to reduce non-conforming, blocked, and slow-moving inventories through effective planning, inventory control, and cross-functional collaboration.

NPI & Change Management

• Lead material planning activities for new product introduction, validation builds, engineering changes, and product transitions, to ensure material readiness throughout validation, pilot builds, and production launch phases
• Assess the inventory impact of engineering and BOM changes, and develop action plans to minimize excess and obsolete inventory.

Planning Process Development

• Develop and improve planning processes, SOPs, work instructions, and planning tools.
• Drive continuous improvement of planning capabilities in an environment with variable demand, frequent product changes, and limited ERP support.

Team Management

• Establish clear performance expectations and monitor planning KPIs, including delivery performance, inventory health, E&O risk, and planning accuracy
• Lead, coach, and develop Planning team members, establish cross-training, skill development, and succession planning programs. Strengthen team capability by standardizing processes, promoting knowledge transfer, and reducing dependency on key individuals.
• Drive alignment among PMO, Engineering, Global sourcing, Production, Quality, and Finance on planning priorities, material readiness, inventory risk, capacity constraints and delivery commitments

Qualification: 

• Minimum 10 years of experience in Production Planning, Material Planning, Supply Chain, or related functions, including at least 3 years in a manager role.
• Hands-on experience in NPI, engineering change management, inventory optimization, and capacity planning.
• Experience in a manufacturing environment with high product mix, frequent product changes, and demand variability is preferred
• Experience in Medical Device, Life Science, Electronics, or other highly regulated manufacturing industries is preferred.
• Strong Excel and data analysis skills with the ability to make planning decisions beyond ERP-generated recommendations.