What are the responsibilities and job description for the Supply Planner position at sugar foods corporation?
Job Title: Supply Planner
Position Location: Villa Rica, GA
Reports To: Director of Operations
About the Company
Sugar Foods LLC is a privately owned company with production facilities in Georgia, Massachusetts, California, and Mexico. Our products are sold and distributed throughout the U.S. and Canada. Sugar Foods manufactures and packages croutons, tortilla chips, crispy toppings, as well as cheese-based toppings. Additionally, Sugar Foods packages a variety of items including sugar, sweeteners, powdered creamer, and dried fruits and nuts.
The Sugar Foods Way
At Sugar Foods, the Customer is King, and our team is our Family. The vision of Sugar Foods is for our products to be on every plate and in every cup. We continue to grow our business and adapt to changing business conditions in order to consistently provide value to our customers, our associates, and our community, by adhering to high standards of quality and safety and always acting in a respectful and responsible manner.
Position Summary for the Supply Planner
Sugar Foods operates food manufacturing, packaging, and distribution facilities to serve over 5,000 customers. The stability of our processes, and the consistency and quality of our products are vital to the delivery of our promise to our customers. Effective planning of manufacturing processes for efficient production, and timely delivery on customer expectations is essential to our mission. The Supply Planner is knowledgeable of the processes across the facility, vigilant in assuring that materials and staffing are aligned with a dynamic schedule, and collaborative with the leadership to achieve successful schedule attainment. In essence, our focus is reliability and quality at the source.
The Supply Planner working with the plant management team as well as the supply chain/customer care team, creates the manufacturing schedule and monitors it regularly to ensure on-time product delivery. Utilizing principles of MRP, the Supply Planner additionally monitors inventory levels of both raw materials and packaging, as well as equipment readiness (including maintenance schedules) to ensure fluid flow of product throughout the manufacturing facility. Monitoring inventory levels is key to ensure demand synchronize with efficient production.
Job Responsibilities of the Supply Planner
Develop Production Schedules
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Determine daily out two weeks production activities based on a variety of factors.
- Review product, plant, personnel, and equipment needs
- Create an actionable and efficient schedule to maintain desired asset uptime
- Manage allergens and format changes
- While developing a schedule, examine work orders or customer requests, expected delivery dates, plant personnel & equipment capabilities, and inventory availability
- Effectively communicate with the buyers for relaying timely messages to the buying team in the near term (example: cycle count adjustments, yield loss)
- For rotational products, create and manage a schedule to ensure adequate quantities prior to the next cycle - inventory balance vs. service levels
- Conduct functional meetings with operations team to review near term “capacity” constraints to plan adequately.
Modify Production Schedules
- Make adjustments based on changing conditions within the manufacturing pipeline. For example: Supply Planner may have to shift processes due to equipment breakdowns or to compensate for delayed material deliveries
- Understand labor demands and level loading to manage and ensure coverage due to unexpected changes based on demand or changes in operational output
- Coordinate with the operations team to determine crewing and staffing requirements based on products
Manage Production Resources
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Work with cycle counters to ensure material availability for upcoming production requirements
- Example: If a C item is on a rotation, ensure we have adequate supplies
- Manage constraints related to assets, people, equipment to stay in front of the demand
- Manage increased demand in items that require excess labor
- Proactively develop schedules to let operations know of one-off items (high labor/allergen)
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Generate and manage a schedule with 95 % uptime over a rotation
- Example: Manage allergen cleans and develop product rotation to avoid weekly cleans
Enhance Internal Processes
- Create and manage processes to better understand our challenges, and develop a mitigation plan. Example: plan to address production shortage impacted by availability of raw materials
- As a gatekeeper identify and differentiate what is materially and potentially critical. Example: allergens vs demand change
- Actively participate in root cause analysis and implement viable solutions for achieving 100% attainment
Prepare Production Reports
- Service level reports – builds knowledge in operations as to significance of attainment
- Inventory carry reports per area basis (PC’s, Retail, etc.)
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Warehousing space balance of inventory vs. capacity planning, and share information with warehouse team
- Ideal situation is a rotation of products, however that can cause space constraints
- Proactively identify inbounds – LTO vs Straight to trucks
- Inventory build on strategic planning (Example: Walmart pre build of other products)
- Attainment reviews with operations team to ensure communication flow
- Schedule line uptime % the goal, for schedule improvements
Qualifications/Requirements:
- 5 years of experience in purchasing a complex (high number of SKUs) portfolio of products across multiple commodity areas (i.e. flexible films, corrugate, ingredients - preferably packaging food manufacturing)
- 10 years of proven record of performance and objective accomplishment
- Working experience with MRP platforms (familiarity with QAD helpful, not mandatory)
- Knowledge of manufacturing GMPs, and SOPs
- Data analytics skills, and organizing information into presentations
- Bachelor’s degree
Skills and Abilities
- Excellent oral and written communication skills
- Data analytical skills – problem solving, critical thinking – (advanced Excel desired)
- Leadership and managerial skills
- Technical aptitude
- Flexible and adapt to changing conditions
Competencies
- Self-awareness: Conscious of your strengths, and seeking to get better in areas of improvement
- Establishing Focus: Develop and communicate goals and actions to support the mission
- Customer Orientation: Demonstrate commitment for satisfying both external and internal customers
- Continuous Improvement: Embrace continuous improvement and reject the status quo
- Fostering Teamwork: Demonstrate collaboration and cooperation
- Managing Performance: Set clear goals and expectations for your own and your team’s performance
Sugar Foods Corporation is an Equal Opportunity Employer. The policy of Sugar Foods Corporation is to extend opportunities to qualified applicants and employees on an equal basis regardless of an individual's race, color, gender, age, national origin, religion, citizenship status, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, physical or mental disability, protected veteran status, genetic information, pregnancy, or any other categories protected by applicable federal, state or local laws.
U.S. Employment: If you have any difficulty using our on-line system, you may use the alternative method described below to contact someone about your interest in employment at Sugar Foods Corporation. Please reference this statement and job reference you are applying for when contacting us. Tel: 678-952-7051.
Sugar Foods Corporation is an E-Verify Company and provides reasonable accommodation for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in job applicant procedures. "Equal Opportunity Employer: Minority/Female/Veteran/Disabled/Gender Identity/Sexual Orientation"
