Director of Planning and Production Coordination
About The Position
The Director of Planning and Production Coordination leads enterprise planning and production coordination across CSP, Tank, and Structural product lines. The role establishes consistent planning standards, aligns demand with capacity, ensures production readiness, balances workloads across sites, and supports reliable customer commitments. It owns the planning system and coordination processes. The Director leads and develops planning leaders and the Production Coordinator Supervisor; sets common planning processes and standards; aligns demand, forecasts, backlog, inventory, labor, equipment, materials, and site capabilities into executable plans; and verifies feasibility of customer commit dates. The role provides an enterprise view of capacity and constraints and leads approved workload-balancing actions. It also governs planning data and transactions in SyteLine, Tekla, and other approved systems, defines performance measures, and uses data to improve delivery, throughput, material utilization, and profitability. The position works closely with manufacturing sites and cross-functional teams, leads regular planning reviews, serves as an escalation point for significant planning issues, supports annual business and capacity planning, and provides regular updates to the VP of Manufacturing. Travel to manufacturing sites is required. The role is on-site in Fargo, North Dakota, Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., with additional hours based on business demand.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in Operations Management, Supply Chain Management, Engineering, Manufacturing, Business Administration, Construction Management, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and relevant work experience.
- Strong knowledge of manufacturing planning, scheduling, capacity management, production coordination, inventory, and shop-floor execution.
- Ability to lead leaders and standardize planning processes across multiple manufacturing sites or business units.
- Working knowledge of ERP-supported planning, bills of material, routing, work centers, job release, inventory, and production transactions.
- Strong analytical judgment and ability to balance customer commitments, manufacturing capability, cost, and business risk.
- Effective communication, facilitation, change leadership, and cross-functional influence skills.
- High integrity, accountability, attention to detail, sound judgment, and bias toward action.
- Commitment to safety, quality, customer service, teamwork, and continuous improvement.
- Prompt and dependable attendance.
- Travel to manufacturing sites is required.
Nice To Haves
- Minimum of ten years of progressive responsible experience in manufacturing operations, planning, scheduling, supply chain, project coordination, or a related field is preferred, including five years of leadership experience.
- Experience leading multi-site planning or operational processes, ERP-supported planning, and cross-functional improvement is preferred.
- Experience in steel fabrication, metal manufacturing, project-based manufacturing, or a related industrial environment is preferred.
Responsibilities
- Embrace and demonstrate the qualities of the TrueNorth Steel Game Changer definition.
- Comply with safety, quality, environmental, and workplace requirements.
- Lead, coach, and develop CSP, Tank, and Structural Planning Leaders and the Production Coordinator Supervisor, establishing expectations, accountability, and succession coverage.
- Establish and continuously improve an integrated planning and production-coordination system with common standards, planning horizons, terminology, decision rights, data requirements, and escalation paths.
- Align customer demand, forecasts, backlog, inventory, labor, equipment, material availability, and site capability into executable production plans.
- Confirm customer commit-date feasibility using verified readiness, material, capacity, outside-processing, site, and delivery information.
- Provide an enterprise view of capacity and constraints and lead approved workload-balancing actions, including site transfers, priority changes, outsourcing, overtime, and staffing adjustments.
- Define and enforce production-readiness requirements for drawings, bills of material, routing, material, CNC and nesting information, quality requirements, outside services, job packets, shipping information, and approvals.
- Lead regular site, product-line, and enterprise planning reviews covering demand, capacity, backlog, readiness, schedule performance, risks, and decisions requiring action.
- Partner with Manufacturing, Sales, Project Management, Estimating, Drafting, Engineering, Purchasing, Inventory Control, Quality, Shipping, Logistics, Finance, and other functions to resolve planning constraints.
- Govern planning and production coordination data and transactions in SyteLine, Tekla, and other approved systems, including capacity assumptions, work-center data, production status, and readiness information.
- Define performance measures and dashboards for schedule, backlog, capacity, readiness, equipment use, changes, and failure-related costs; use data to improve delivery, throughput, material utilization, and profitability.
- Establish repeatable standard work, documentation, training, cross-training, and backup coverage to reduce dependence on individual knowledge.
- Serve as the escalation point for significant cross-site, cross-product, and cross-functional planning issues; elevate unresolved matters with facts, alternatives, risks, and recommendations.
- Support annual business, capacity, capital, workforce, and budget planning, as well as strategic manufacturing initiatives.
- Provide the VP of Manufacturing with regular updates on planning risks, delivery, capacity, material, organizational needs, trends, and recommended actions.
- Travel to manufacturing sites to understand processes, build relationships, support teams, and ensure consistent implementation of planning and production-coordination standards.
- Maintain prompt and dependable attendance.
- Perform other duties as assigned.
Benefits
- Full benefits package
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Director
