Production Planning Manager in Birmingham

Location: Wolverhampton

Responsibilities:

• The Production Planning Manager (PPM) is accountable for ensuring that all manufacturing master data required for planning and scheduling — including materials, BOMs, routings, production versions, and capacity data — is accurate, complete, and maintained in SAP S/4HANA to support reliable planning and execution.
• The PPM acts as the key interface between Engineering, Manufacturing, and Planning to ensure engineering outputs (drawings, parts lists, design changes) are correctly translated into structured, controlled manufacturing data.
• The PPM will be a good negotiator and communicator ensuring buy-in and commitments from the manufacturing team, project planning and business development and ensuring that the production schedules reflect the financial budgets and forecasts for the business.
• The role will include regular monitoring and progress against the agreed schedules, measuring adherence to the plan and updating the plan based on feedback from the stakeholders. The key objective will be ensuring delivery to agreed customer commitments and dates.
• In the planning process he will be instrumental in creating the master schedule, obtaining agreement with the stakeholders and then using this to drive production output and use as input for the MRP process to launch planned manufacturing work orders and purchase order requests.
• Must be able to see the big picture but focus on the detail to drive manufacturing delivery performance.
• For this they will have operational leadership of the planning engineers, stores team and estimating engineers.
• They will have responsibility for the creation and issue of work orders (route cards) and for monitoring the performance of production to the plan.
• Oversee the creation, validation, and maintenance of manufacturing master data (materials, BOMs, routings, production versions) within SAP S/4HANA to ensure planning accuracy and full data integrity.
• Ensure all master data reflects current design intent, approved engineering changes (ECN/ECR), and manufacturing capability.
• Maintain strong governance of data standards, naming conventions, and documentation to support nuclear manufacturing traceability requirements.
• Continuously review and condition master data to reflect lifecycle updates, process improvements, and lessons learned.
• Act as the primary liaison between Engineering and Manufacturing for interpreting design outputs and converting them into accurate manufacturing data.
• Validate engineering drawings, parts lists, and design changes to ensure they are correctly represented in SAP and suitable for planning and production execution.
• Support NCR investigations where data or routing errors contribute to non-conformance, using structured problem‑solving methods (5 Whys, DMAIC, RCA).
• Lead the utilisation of SAP S/4HANA and Fiori apps for planning, scheduling, master data management, and MRP execution.
• Identify opportunities to enhance planning and production control through improved use of SAP functionality.
• Provide coaching and first-line support to planners, manufacturing engineers, and shop floor users on SAP processes and best practices.
• Ensure capacity planning data, lead times, and work centre information are accurate and continuously maintained.
• Validate MRP outputs and recommendations, ensuring that incorrect or incomplete master data does not compromise planning accuracy.
• Conduct periodic data audits to ensure high-quality, right‑first‑time data across all planning‑relevant objects.

Experience/Qualifications:

• Extensive experience with SAP S/4HANA in a manufacturing environment, including Material Master, PP, Production Execution, and Manufacturing Data Management.
• Strong competence in data structuring, cleansing, validation, and lifecycle control.
• Experience with engineering change management and its impact on manufacturing data.
• Ability to interpret engineering drawings, parts lists, and technical documentation to create accurate manufacturing data.
• High level of accuracy and attention to detail when managing data that drives planning and scheduling.
• Understanding of data governance frameworks and the importance of controlled, traceable master data in a regulated environment.