Supply Planner

Job Location: Hershey, PA Job Summary: The primary purpose of a Supply Planner is to develop and implement a master production schedule and inventory management strategy to support customer service goals and achieve the company’s financial objectives. Role Responsibilities: Master Planning System Set Up – With guidance, develop and maintain system table settings, calendars, and attributes to develop a feasible rough cut master production schedule. Master Production Scheduling - With guidance, develop a feasible rough cut 18-month production schedule for finished goods and dependent demand requirements for SKU’s assigned ensuring that the schedule support sales goals, inventory financial targets, and minimizes product age and obsolescence. Monitor and adjust plans as needed regularly. Develop this schedule using JDA Master Planning recommendations based upon scheduling parameters and system settings. Oversee the successful transformation of these schedules into shift level plans through appropriate communication and negotiation with Operation Planners. Incorporate the flexibility to accommodate a range of potential outcomes of the business plan. Product Supply Coordination - Utilize exception management to coordinate activity that impacts the ability to maintain constant and sufficient product supply. Analyze and evaluate current manufacturing facilities to determine when additional manufacturing capacity is required to support sales demand. Utilize the PCM process to review items for executional feasibility and communicate potential issues to internal customers in a timely fashion. Incorporate new items into plans and schedules. Serve as project champion for all assigned intermediate halb items. Review AGI report monthly. Manage product shortages through the appropriate JDA settings. Communicate with Marketing, Sales, Manufacturing, and other stakeholders’ shortage or overage issues and help to develop solutions. Inventory Management - Maintain finished good and intermediate inventory targets for assigned items. Manage item versions to support packaging changes or in-and-out programs at all locations. Investigate outlier changes in available inventory in a timely manner and take appropriate follow up actions. Support regional, resource, and seasonal build strategies using the JDA system. Monitor new items to ensure efficient flow of product both physically and systematically. Effectively use the JDA Fulfillment and Deployment tools and their settings to efficiently and equitably deploy product throughout the network. Identify opportunities for safety stock rationalization. Minimize aged and unsalable product through maintaining calculated inventory for assigned items. ATP support/Customer Service - Maintain accurate production information in JDA/SAP to ensure product is available to support ATP and support customer service level targets. Work with Customer service to resolve ATP issues and perform necessary functions such as reviewing the ATP report to identify supportability issues. Miscellaneous Planning Duties – Complete annual planning activities in accordance within the timetable and guidelines. Set up Bills of Materials in JDA for items generating dependent demand. Conduct analysis of operational processes as needed. Qualifications: • Bachelor’s degree in Business or Engineering, preferably emphasizing Supply Chain Management. APICS, CPIM certification helpful. • Minimum of 1-2 years progressive, related experience in such areas as production scheduling, inventory management or supply/operations planning preferred. • Knowledge of Supply Chain Management Principles • Proficiency with Supply Planning Systems • SAP experience preferred • Strong teamwork skills, including the ability to train others • Excellent communication skills • Strong mathematical, analytical, and problem-solving skills • Strong general PC skills (MS suite of products) #LI-KM1