Cost Analyst - Operations

AFL•Duncan, SC

About The Position

The Operations Cost Analyst supports manufacturing performance by maintaining reliable plant cost information, analyzing operational drivers, and translating results into clear actions. The role executes enterprise costing, planning, control, and reporting standards; strengthens product-cost and inventory data; and provides decision-ready analysis to Plant Controlling, Operations, Supply Chain, Engineering, Procurement, and Product Costing. It is a hands-on analytical role intended to build broad manufacturing-finance capability within clearly defined accounting, costing, and approval authorities. The analyst prepares and validates plant cost, inventory, and manufacturing schedules for monthly close; executes assigned standard-cost activities and cost-roll tasks; validates production master data; analyzes manufacturing variances and inventory trends; supports planning and forecasting; and provides operational decision support. The role also maintains analysis and controls, documents assumptions and approvals, collaborates across functions, and escalates exceptions to the appropriate owners. The analyst owns the accuracy, completeness, traceability, and timely delivery of assigned analyses and costing inputs, but does not independently establish accounting policy, costing methodology, customer pricing, or final financial approval. The position is primarily office-based in support of one or more manufacturing facilities, with regular interaction in production and inventory areas and periodic participation in physical inventory, cycle-count, and plant-control activities.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, Business, Economics, Supply Chain, Engineering, or a related analytical discipline.
Typically two or more years of relevant experience in cost accounting, manufacturing finance, plant operations analysis, inventory, supply chain analytics, or a comparable role; equivalent practical experience will be considered.
Working knowledge of standard costing, inventory valuation, manufacturing variances, absorption concepts, financial controls, and production economics.
Proficiency with ERP and reporting systems, advanced Excel, and analytical or visualization tools.
Ability to work with detailed operational and financial data, reconcile to governed sources, identify root causes, communicate implications, and manage multiple deadlines in a matrix organization.
High integrity and accountability, analytical curiosity, disciplined attention to detail, practical problem solving, clear communication, constructive challenge, collaboration, adaptability, and commitment to continuous learning, standardization, and responsible use of automation and AI-enabled tools.

Nice To Haves

Oracle experience.
Power BI experience.

Responsibilities

Prepare and validate recurring plant cost, inventory, and manufacturing schedules for the monthly close, including assigned accruals, reconciliations, journal-entry support, and variance explanations.
Reconcile analytical outputs to governed financial results, investigate exceptions, document supporting information, and escalate unresolved or non-routine accounting matters.
Execute assigned standard-cost activities and annual cost-roll tasks under enterprise methods, calendars, validation requirements, and approval workflows.
Validate bills of material, routings, labor and machine rates, overhead rates, yields, scrap factors, and related production master data; coordinate corrections with Operations, Engineering, Supply Chain, and IT.
Analyze purchase-price, material-usage, labor-efficiency, scrap, overhead-spending, absorption, job-close, and other standard-to-actual manufacturing variances.
Translate variances into operational root causes, financial implications, and practical follow-up actions; distinguish supported facts from assumptions and escalate policy, methodology, or system issues.
Support inventory valuation, cycle counts, and physical inventories; analyze reconciliations, adjustments, aging, reserves, excess and obsolete exposure, turns, and working-capital trends.
Partner with Plant Controlling, Operations, and Supply Chain to identify inventory risks and actions while preserving service, resilience, control integrity, and approved accounting treatment.
Prepare plant planning inputs for volume, mix, labor, material, overhead, inventory, and capital using governed definitions, approved assumptions, and traceable source data.
Maintain assigned operations-cost and manufacturing assumptions for forecasts, evaluate forecast-to-actual performance, and identify recurring bias or unsupported assumptions.
Maintain scorecards, cost bridges, and recurring operating analyses connecting production drivers to gross margin, operating profit, inventory, and cash.
Provide cost, capacity, productivity, and margin analysis for labor planning, sourcing, make-versus-buy, automation, capital, footprint, product-mix, new-product, and continuous-improvement decisions.
Quantify expected benefits, implementation costs, timing, and dependencies; track approved initiatives through realized P&L, working-capital, and cash impact.
Improve standard work, documentation, controls, data quality, analytics, and automation to reduce manual effort and site-specific dependency.
Perform assigned work in accordance with GAAP, J-SOX, corporate policy, delegated authority, segregation-of-duties requirements, and AFL environmental, health, and safety expectations.
Retain clear support for calculations, assumptions, approvals, and changes.