Buyer

Latham, The Pool Company•Plainfield, IN

19d

About The Position

The Buyer/Planner is responsible for purchasing materials and coordinating production plans that support the timely, cost-effective manufacture of pool covers. This role balances customer demand, inventory targets, supplier performance, production capacity, and lead times to maintain material availability and an efficient manufacturing schedule. The Buyer/Planner works closely with Production, Engineering, Quality, Customer Service, Shipping, and suppliers to resolve constraints and support on-time delivery.

Requirements

Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent experience preferred, APICS certification a plus.
Experience >3 years scheduling/planning in a high-volume production environment.
Previous ERP experience required.
Proven history of progressive responsibility with excellent results
Strong analytical skills; High proficiency with Microsoft tools: Teams, Excel and Access databases, software. Experience with Power BI a plus. Ability to analyze multitude of data and generate insights and actions.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills; organized, analytical and detail oriented.
Ability to effectively communicate with all functions. Demonstrated agility, ability to multi-task and move from priority to priority with frequent changes in needs, requirements due to unexpected delays and events.Ability to make timely decisions while including appropriate people in decision-making process.

Nice To Haves

APICS certification a plus.
Experience with Power BI a plus.

Responsibilities

Own the Production scheduling process and optimize daily/weekly/monthly production to meet customer commitments based on order queue and communicated lead times. Adjusts schedule as needed because of delays in raw materials, machine downtime, staffing, etc.
Interact and establish rhythm with Plant Production Team, account managers/customer service, and Shipping & Receiving Team to provide accurate delivery date management within expected service levels and lead times.
Communicate with account managers, supply chain and operations on production and order delays. Manage back orders, dates, and completion.
Understand capacity and throughput capability in alignment with order intake. Actively work to manage production capabilities in alignment with product forecasting.
Works closely with Logistics on coordination of delivery to the customer. Manages shipping capability as a capacity limitation when planning lead times and throughput of order queue to customers.
Works closely with buyer planner and inventory coordination on purchased materials and in-house produced parts. Establishes daily communication to understand inventory levels, stock outs and impacts to scheduling.
Optimizes department and machine capacity during scheduling process.
Primary interface working with engineering, supply chain, production, sales, finance for product priority.
Supports plant Inventory management process and cycle counting logic and execution.
Schedules Outsourcing if required to assist Buyers to meet customer demand and internal requirements to meet outsourcing production plan.
Perform buyer/planner activities as required to ensure efficient stocking levels of raw material inventory when buyer/planner absent.
Coordinate stocking target levels (SS) with Inventory Management Coordinator based on usage and forward-looking master schedule.
Works closely with SIOP planners/Scheduling Leader to have alignment on the schedule with the overall master schedule.
Lead improvement initiatives/projects, support site lean initiative.
Support intra-plant transfers and inventory requirements to fulfill customer orders as needed.
Lead daily Production discussion in Plant Daily Stand-up meeting, and weekly Production & Scheduling meeting, participate in daily AC Daily Team Meeting
Generate work tickets and traveler, and/or serial numbers and bar codes for production based on schedule.
Lead implementation, improvements, and maintenance of IFS ERP/MRP system from the plant level in coordination with IT and ERP consultants.