The Supply and Inventory Planner is responsible for balancing supply, inventory, capacity, and risk on test-system and options level in a multi-tier external manufacturing environment. Reporting directly to the Demand & Supply Planning Lead, the role translates demand plans, business priorities, and supply constraints into feasible supply plans and inventory positioning recommendations.
The role provides the supply and inventory view required for Supply Review, S&OP, shortage management, and execution handover. It works closely with Supply Specialists, S&OE, Strategic Supplier Management, Product Sourcing, Data & Tools, and external suppliers / contract manufacturers to ensure supply feasibility, inventory health, and timely mitigation of constraints.
The Supply and Inventory Planner supports reliable customer service and business execution by creating transparency on supply gaps, inventory exposure, buffer effectiveness, E&O risk, and service / inventory trade-offs. The role enables data-driven decisions to balance service, cost, cash, and risk.
- Supply Planning & Balancing: translate demand plans and business priorities into feasible supply plans on test-system and options level, balancing capacity, material availability, lead times, inventory, and logistics constraints.
- Inventory Planning & Target Setting: define, maintain, and review inventory targets, safety stock levels, buffer concepts, and inventory positioning in alignment with demand, supply, service, and cost objectives.
- Supply Review & S&OP Support: provide supply and inventory inputs for Supply Review and S&OP, including supply gaps, inventory coverage, shortage risk, E&O exposure, buffer status, trade-offs, and mitigation actions.
- Interaction Model & Planning Interface: act as the planning interface between Demand & Supply Planning Lead, Supply Operations / Supply Specialists, S&OE, Logistics, Strategic Supplier Management, Product Sourcing, Data & Tools, and external manufacturing partners.
- Risk, Scenario & Mitigation Planning: run scenarios to evaluate the impact of demand changes, supply constraints, lead-time changes, allocation, ramp-up, and recovery actions on service, inventory, cost, and risk.
- Inventory Health & E&O Control: monitor inventory across internal and external locations and prevent excess and obsolescence through early identification, parameter review, phase-in / phase-out planning, and coordinated mitigation actions.
- Execution Handover & Shortage Support: align with Supply Operations and S&OE on constraints, shortages, recovery plans, expediting needs, and allocation proposals, ensuring a clear handover from planning into execution.
- KPI Transparency / Reporting & Continuous Improvement: maintain dashboards and reports covering to track KPIs such as supply feasibility, inventory health, coverage, turns, E&O risk, shortage exposure, and buffer effectiveness, and improve planning parameters, data quality, and planning methods.
Requirements:
- Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain, Business, Engineering, Finance, or related field.
- Minimum 5+ years of experience in supply planning, inventory planning, material planning, supply chain operations, or inventory management, ideally within an outsourced / external manufacturing environment.
- Strong understanding of supply and inventory planning concepts such as capacity constraints, lead times, MOQs, safety stock, buffer logic, inventory coverage, E&O, forecast consumption, and service / inventory trade-offs.
- Strong working knowledge of ERP / MRP and planning systems such as Oracle, Kinaxis, or similar, combined with solid data and reporting capabilities.
- Experience working with contract manufacturers, suppliers, and global supply networks in matrix-organized environments.
- Experience in cross-functional planning interfaces, including Supply Review, S&OP support, shortage management, S&OE handover, and inventory-related escalation processes.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities with a structured, data-driven approach, including scenario-based assessment of service, inventory, cost, and risk trade-offs.
- Exposure to NPI / change control processes and lifecycle planning including phase-in / phase-out, last-time-buy, EOL, and obsolescence management.
- Preferred: APICS / ASCM certification (CPIM, CSCP) or equivalent.
- Experience with Power BI or similar reporting tools, advanced Excel, and data visualization / reporting.
- Analytical Thinking & Problem Solving – Advanced
- Communication – Advanced
- Data Analytics – Advanced
- Demand Management – Intermediate
- Exception Leadership – Intermediate
- Inventory Management – Expert
- Supply Planning – Advanced
- Material Planning – Advanced
- Risk Management – Intermediate
- Stakeholder Management – Advanced
- Supply and Inventory Management – Expert
- Project and time Management – Intermediate
