Senior Supply Chain Planner in Telford

The Senior Supply Planner will focus on managing the procurement of goods to meet the forecasted demand, ensuring operational continuity and customer satisfaction through the efficient management of inventory levels. The role is tasked with ensuring the right stock is in the right place at the right time. Maintaining strong relationships, both internally and externally to secure the supply of materials is key to this role.

Key Accountabilities

• Key Supplier Order Management
  • Plan inventory and purchase orders to meet forecasted demand
  • Responsible for all aspects of purchase orders management for key suppliers, including PO placement; checking order confirmations; daily monitoring; investigation and resolution of customer back orders; expediting orders in line with demand; ensuring on time and in full delivery of PO’s; chasing overdue PO’s; and dealing with delivery discrepancies and invoice queries
  • Provide accurate lead time and delivery information to stakeholders
  • Take follow up actions in relation to material shortages that affect stock levels or production
  • Manage return of goods process
• Supplier Reliability
  • Manage key supplier base to ensure availability of goods and materials, lead times and supplier capabilities
  • Analyse supplier performance data and implement corrective action plans to deal with underperforming suppliers
  • Collaborate with Buyers and Non-Conformance team to ensure continuity of supply when affected by quality issues
  • Implement risk mitigation strategies, such as dual sourcing and collaborative initiatives with suppliers to strengthen supply plan
• Demand & Supply
  • Analyse inventory levels, order statuses and incoming shipments to ensure timely arrival of goods
  • Align inventory and ordering with actual demand
  • Working in collaboration with Demand Planning, implement SOP processes to co-operate with commercial, finance, and warehouse teams
  • Manage new product introduction and ensure stock availability at product launch
  • Ensure stock availability for new customer demand
  • Manage product modifications and supersessions, using Product Life Cycle in Slim4
  • Develop inventory strategies on existing items, new products and manage item exit
• Inventory Management
  • Balance inventory levels to meet demand while minimising carrying costs and stockouts
  • Manage inventory and safety stock levels to determine optimal orders and schedules
  • Manage inventory carrying and supply costs
  • Own and maintain Master Data, to ensure optimum stock availability with agreed stock targets
• Capacity Constraints
  • Identify constraints in the supply chain which restrict our ability to meet demand, and act to either resolve or suggest alternative sourcing strategies
• Project Coordination
  • Assist SCM, or other areas of the business as required in coordination of resourcing or new product launch projects
• Returns Management
  • Assist the non-conformance team and warehouse team with management of returning goods to suppliers.
• Continuous Improvement
  • Plan, develop, implement and evaluate processes for material delivery from supplier to point of receipt
  • Implement all processes to agreed standards and targets, and support continuous improvement initiatives and identify areas of improvement

Key Experiences and Skills Required

• Previous experience of materials planning and managing the smooth supply of materials in line with production or sales requirements and budget
• Material forecasting experience
• Strong IT systems knowledge and skills including advanced Excel
• Knowledge and experience of using MRP systems or similar
• High degree of knowledge and understanding of a variety of manufacturing processes and components and good understanding of supply chain management or expert knowledge of specialist area
• Analytical skills with good attention to detail
• Commercial and financial awareness, with a full understanding of the impact of failure with regards to business costs, production targets and fulfilment of customer orders
• Results orientated and organised with the ability to plan and deliver against deadlines

Performance Measures

• Attendance
• Competence audits
• Development of skills and competence in line with the training plan
• Performance vs mutually agreed departmental KPIs

Personal Attributes

• Adhere to any health, safety and environmental policies and procedures to ensure the safety and wellbeing of self, staff and visitors
• Embraces personal challenges
• Confident, rounded thinking
• Self-awareness
• Resilient, assertive, optimistic and open to change
• Engages others with a collaborative approach
• Self-motivated and able to work under pressure