Production Planner in Exeter

Are you an experienced Production Planner, Resource Planner or Manufacturing Planner with strong MRP knowledge and a background in balancing production demand, capacity and materials? Do you enjoy looking ahead, identifying potential supply or capacity issues before they impact production and working across departments to keep customer delivery on track? We're supporting a leading manufacturing business in Fareham who are looking to recruit a Long Range Resource Planner to join their Planning team. This is an excellent opportunity for an experienced planner to take ownership of longer-term production requirements, working closely with Production, Purchasing, Customer Services and Finance to ensure resources and materials are aligned with customer demand.

What's the role all about? As the Long Range Resource Planner, you'll be responsible for balancing supply and demand by interrogating the ERP and MRP systems against available materials, capacity and resources. Your focus will be ensuring works orders are released on time and that the business has clear visibility of future production requirements, helping protect Customer On-Time Delivery (OTD). You'll continuously review the forward load, identify potential risks and work with operational stakeholders to resolve constraints before they impact the production schedule. This is a role for someone who doesn't simply follow an MRP system; you'll need to understand the information, challenge planning data where appropriate and make informed decisions to improve overall supply chain performance.

Key responsibilities:

• Manage long-range production and resource planning requirements
• Balance supply and demand across materials, capacity and manufacturing resources
• Review and resolve MRP action messages
• Review MRP job creation recommendations and create works orders
• Identify potential supply, capacity and resource constraints and escalate risks early
• Manage the forward production load to support customer delivery requirements
• Support the development and maintenance of the Master Production Schedule
• Drive On Time to Release (OTR) performance through daily and weekly planning activities
• Challenge planning data integrity to improve replenishment planning
• Work closely with Production to support achievement of manufacturing schedules
• Coordinate information between Production and Customer Services to maintain alignment with the customer order book
• Collaborate with Purchasing to resolve material availability issues
• Review excess and obsolete inventory and identify actions to minimise stock impact
• Work with Finance to investigate and close WIP variances
• Coordinate and communicate daily MRB outputs to the Planning team
• Support New Product Introduction (NPI) projects
• Provide finite scheduling support using the VAPS MoM system when required
• Support customer, BSI and regulatory audits
• Identify and implement 5S and continuous improvement opportunities

What you'll need:

• A minimum of 3 years' experience within Production Planning or Resource Planning
• Strong knowledge of MRP
• Experience with production planning, capacity planning or advanced planning and scheduling
• Strong Microsoft Excel skills
• Ability to interrogate ERP/MRP information rather than simply process system recommendations
• Good understanding of supply and demand within a manufacturing environment
• Strong analytical and problem-solving capability
• Confidence identifying and escalating risks
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to work across multiple departments
• Ability to remain calm and make effective decisions when priorities change

Desirable:

• Experience working within an engineering or manufacturing environment
• APICS or Supply Chain Planning qualification
• Experience with Master Production Scheduling
• Knowledge of VAPS or similar Advanced Planning & Scheduling systems
• Experience supporting NPI projects
• Exposure to Lean Manufacturing, 5S or continuous improvement methodologies

About you:

You're a proactive planner who naturally looks ahead rather than waiting for problems to occur. You'll be: Analytical and data-driven, confident challenging existing planning assumptions, highly organised, resilient when priorities change, comfortable making decisions, a strong cross-functional communicator, curious and solutions-focused, able to work effectively with minimal supervision.

Most importantly, you'll understand that effective production planning isn't simply about maintaining a schedule; it's about anticipating risk, balancing competing requirements and ensuring the entire supply chain is positioned to deliver for the customer.

Why join?

This is an opportunity to join a growing manufacturing business where Planning plays a critical role in operational and customer performance. You'll have visibility across the wider supply chain and work closely with Production, Purchasing, Customer Services and Finance, giving you the opportunity to directly influence manufacturing performance, inventory and customer delivery.

Interested? If you're an experienced Production Planner, Resource Planner, Manufacturing Planner, Supply Chain Planner or MRP Planner looking for your next challenge, we'd love to hear from you. Apply today or contact Kingdom People for a confidential discussion.