Director - Materials Planning & Inventory

Duravent Group•Grand Rapids, MI

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Director, Materials Planning & Inventory is the enterprise functional leader responsible for materials planning standards, inventory strategy, planning capability, governance, and network-wide inventory performance. The role establishes the system of work used across facilities and drives consistent planning disciplines, policies, metrics, business reviews, and corrective actions. It provides enterprise functional leadership, standards, governance, capability development, and accountability for outcomes, with a scope broader than day-to-day inventory management. The position is full-time and hybrid, based at the Duravent Group innovation center in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with at least two in-person days per week. The director works across facilities and partners with Operations, Procurement, Finance, Sales, and Business Unit leadership to align materials planning and inventory with service, growth, risk, and working-capital objectives.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain Management, Operations, Industrial Engineering, Business, or a related field.
Ten or more years of progressive experience in supply chain, materials management, planning, inventory, manufacturing operations, or related disciplines.
Five or more years of leadership experience in materials planning, inventory, supply chain, or operations.
Demonstrated experience developing planning standards, inventory strategies, and performance-management systems across multiple facilities or business units.
Experience leading inventory optimization, working-capital, and cross-functional process-improvement initiatives.
Strong knowledge of MRP, replenishment, production planning, inventory policy, and planning master data.
Experience with ERP platforms such as SAP, Oracle, or comparable systems.

Nice To Haves

Master of Business Administration or other relevant advanced degree.
APICS/ASCM certification, including CPIM or CSCP.
Enterprise or multi-site manufacturing leadership experience.
Experience implementing SIOP or Integrated Business Planning processes.
Experience building functional governance models in a matrixed organization.
Demonstrated success improving DIO, turns, aging, excess and obsolete inventory, service, and working capital.
Experience with planning applications, advanced analytics, Power BI, and ERP transformation.
Lean, Six Sigma, or related continuous-improvement certification.

Responsibilities

Develop and maintain enterprise inventory policies, segmentation, targets, and control frameworks.
Establish governance for safety stock, reorder points, min/max settings, lot sizes, lead times, and other planning parameters.
Define exception-management and approval processes, and align inventory strategy with service, growth, risk, and working-capital objectives.
Establish common materials planning, replenishment, scheduling, and execution standards, including standard work, planning calendars, review cadences, and role expectations.
Drive consistent adoption of planning disciplines across facilities and identify systemic process, data, and tool gaps.
Own enterprise visibility to DIO, turns, aging, excess, obsolete, slow-moving, and at-risk inventory.
Lead root-cause analysis and corrective-action plans for material performance gaps, and drive inventory optimization across raw materials, work-in-process, and finished goods.
Report progress, risks, and required decisions to executive leadership.
Provide functional direction, coaching, and development to plant-based Material Managers and planning resources; define competency expectations and training priorities.
Lead an enterprise Materials Council and communities of practice, and support talent assessment, succession planning, and organizational capability development.
Represent materials planning and inventory in SIOP and related operating reviews; translate demand, supply, capacity, and sourcing decisions into inventory implications and actions.
Partner with Operations, Procurement, Finance, Sales, and Business Unit leadership, and escalate enterprise risks, trade-offs, and policy exceptions.
Establish data-quality expectations and governance for planning parameters and inventory master data.
Support effective use of SAP, Oracle, planning applications, analytics, and future enterprise systems.
Lead process-improvement and automation opportunities and develop consistent enterprise dashboards and performance reporting.