Demand Planning Manager

Raymour and Flanigan•Liverpool, NY

19h

About The Position

Raymour & Flanigan is seeking a hands-on manager to oversee demand planning and purchase order execution for an assigned segment of a catalog of roughly 5,000 SKUs. The role is focused on maintaining strong in-stock performance without excess inventory, from building forecasts and placing buys through vendor acknowledgement, cargo readiness, transportation handoff, and receipt at company buildings. Purchasing plans must account for weekly receiving capacity, including door and labor constraints, and seasonal pull-ahead requirements such as Chinese New Year. The manager works closely with merchandising, transportation, and distribution center operations and reports to the director leading demand planning and purchasing. The role also identifies and implements opportunities to automate manual monitoring, forecasting support, purchase order placement, and exception detection. Prior AI expertise is not required, but technical savvy, curiosity, and an interest in applying these tools are important. Success in the first year includes improving in-stock rates while holding or reducing weeks of supply; improving and explaining forecast accuracy and bias; keeping receipts within weekly receiving capacity; improving vendor on-time performance; and automating repetitive monitoring tasks. Candidates must be authorized to work in the U.S. without current or future visa sponsorship. Raymour & Flanigan supports a drug- and smoke-free work environment and is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer.

Requirements

Strong analytical capability, including working directly with data, building models, and defending the numbers.
Fluency with SQL, BI tools, and advanced Excel.
Ability to learn an ERP or planning system quickly.
Hands-on experience in demand planning, inventory planning, or purchasing.
Vendor-facing experience, including following up on supplier commitments and influencing vendor performance.
Technical savvy, curiosity about AI tools, and conviction that automation can improve the function.
Comfort working within hard physical or operational constraints.

Nice To Haves

Experience with a large SKU base and overseas vendors.
Experience building solutions with automation or AI, or a clear track record of teaching yourself new tools and applying them.

Responsibilities

Build and maintain forecasts for an assigned product segment, including new items, seasonal ramps, and end-of-life products.
Translate forecasts into weekly buy plans with clear coverage targets by SKU and category.
Recommend inventory levels that support in-stock performance while avoiding excess inventory, and provide analysis behind the targets.
Review forecast accuracy and bias regularly and address their underlying drivers.
Place purchase orders according to the plan and required cadence.
Smooth purchases against weekly receiving capacity shared across the catalog so receipts fit building capacity.
Build and execute seasonal pull-ahead plans, especially for Chinese New Year, spreading volume across months rather than placing a single large buy.
Manage the purchase order lifecycle by obtaining vendor acknowledgements, validating cargo-ready dates, and maintaining committed dates.
Coordinate handoffs to the transportation booking team so bookings, transit, and receipts align with need dates.
Identify and escalate exceptions early enough for corrective action.
Work daily with merchandising, transportation, and distribution center operations.
Track vendor performance against acknowledged dates and cargo-ready commitments.
Contact vendors when purchase orders slip and hold them accountable for commitments.
Maintain vendor scorecards and run the vendor escalation process.
Identify automation opportunities, build or prototype initial solutions, and maintain them.
Support forecasting with models, automate purchase order placement where rules can be encoded, and automate surfacing of purchase order lifecycle exceptions.