Sr. Demand Planner

Novolex•Lake Forest, IL

2d•$83,600 - $115,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior Demand Planner is responsible for generating and owning Demand Plan for their assigned scope (sales organization and or products). The expectation is that the Senior Demand Planner develops a monthly plan in partnership with their business stakeholders that provides an 18-month outlook for the needs of their customer base. In addition, as a Senior Planner this role has responsibility for coordinating efforts across the Demand Planning team, including monthly reports, budget development, and process improvement projects. This highly impactful and visible role will communicate and present with stakeholders and leaders across the organization. This role will ensure that the demand signal being used across the organization is aligned with sales and capacity to be used for making decisions in financial planning, manufacturing asset planning, staffing, procurement of raw materials, and final customer fulfillment. This person will be a key owner in the monthly SIOP process.

Requirements

BA/BS degree in business, mathematics or engineering; Master’s degree preferred
APICS or IBF certification preferred
Experience with Advanced Planning Software tools; experience with Blue Yonder and/or Kinaxis preferred
ERP experience required, SAP experience preferred
MRP experience and understanding required
Analytical capability
Proven ability to translate data into information, recommendations and conclusions; work with large diverse data sets and perform modeling , statistical analysis and data visualization
Advanced in Statistical Forecasting (demonstrated by understanding of how and when to use different statistical models; understanding of parameters to change in statistical models to get the best fit; ability to apply market indicators and product lifecycle management events to models)
Excel Advanced (demonstrated by use of Macros and VBA programming, complex data analysis and modeling, creating dashboards, use of Power Query and Power Pivot.
Advanced use of database tools (demonstrated by ability to program reports in tools like Power BI or Tableau)
Ability to communicate with business partners at different locations and different leadership levels
Proven ability to lead Consensus Demand Planning meetings as part of a monthly SIOP cycle
Proven ability to integrate financial information with the demand plan
Strong judgement, confidence and business understanding to make decisions and challenge stakeholders
Ability to travel domestically (no more than 10%)

Responsibilities

Own the Monthly Demand Planning process in the Monthly SIOP cycle using Kinaxis Rapid Response and/or Blue Yonder.
Maintain DFU level forecasts
Utilize statistical methods, such as Lewandowski model, in reviewing and analyzing data to drive improved accuracy.
Partner with the sales and product/business teams to create the 18-month unconstrained demand plan for the assigned scope
Perform data maintenance and clean-up in the planning system
Implement forecast product transitions and successions.
Analyze current plan and assess gaps and opportunities considering:
Statistical trending
Meet with sales team monthly to learn of significant changes to current forecasts
Information from the customer service team
Meetings with customers
Economic indicators
During the monthly Demand Consensus process, summarize the changes to the current 18-month Demand Plan and make recommendations of changes to the owner of the assigned scope
Communicate changes to demand and supply (increases/decreases) to affected stakeholders in SIOP, Procurement and Manufacturing.
On an annual basis, work with the Sales, Business and Finance teams to generate the Demand Plan for the AOP/budget process
As part of the monthly Demand Planning cycle run reports that help coordinate team efforts for:
Calculating forecast accuracy
Coordinating data cleansing needs
Identifying drivers or forecast error and actions that need to be taken
Drive continuous improvements to the SIOP Planning process