MASTER PLANNER

Power Drives Inc.•Buffalo, NY

1h•$80,000 - $95,000•Onsite

About The Position

Power Drives, Inc. (PDI) is a Buffalo-based manufacturer of custom-engineered hose, tube, and fluid conveyance systems for industrial and mobile equipment applications. The Master Planner owns the master production schedule from customer demand intake through shipment, maintaining a stable, executable plan in Sage X3 that meets customer requirements while balancing capacity, materials, and inventory. This is a working-manager role: the Master Planner serves as the senior individual contributor for master scheduling and leads, supervises, and develops the planning and scheduling team. The role connects customer demand signals with the production floor and partners with sales, purchasing, manufacturing, engineering, and quality to align materials, manpower, and equipment with priorities. The position is 100% onsite. Compensation starts at $80,000–$95,000, plus an annual incentive plan.

Requirements

Seven or more years of experience in production planning, master scheduling, or materials management in a discrete manufacturing environment.
At least three years in a supervisory or managerial role with direct reports.
Proven ability to manage complex supply chains and lead a planning or scheduling team in a manufacturing or distribution environment.
Demonstrated command of master production scheduling (MPS), material requirements planning (MRP), and rough-cut capacity planning, including lot-sizing, safety-stock, and planning-time-fence methodology.
Hands-on experience translating customer demand signals, including release portals and EDI 830 forecasts and 862 firm releases, into ERP-actionable schedules.
Proficiency with a manufacturing ERP system; Sage X3 is strongly preferred.
Bachelor’s degree in supply chain, operations management, or business, or equivalent planning experience.
APICS / ASCM certification (CPIM or CSCP).

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree in supply chain management, operations management, or business administration.
Automotive or OEM-supplier experience, including PPAP, EDI releases, or customer scorecards.
Lean / Six Sigma exposure.

Responsibilities

Supervise, coach, and develop the planning and scheduling team, including setting goals, conducting performance reviews, and building capability through training and cross-training.
Allocate team workload and coverage, including for unplanned absences, to keep planning work moving without single-point dependencies.
Own departmental planning processes, standards, and SOPs; lead hiring and onboarding for the planning function.
Represent planning in S&OP, production, and leadership meetings; communicate performance, risks, and corrective actions.
Build and maintain the master production schedule to optimize capacity utilization, raw-material allocation, work in progress, and finished-goods inventory while protecting customer delivery dates.
Set and enforce planning time fences and exercise change-control authority over the firm schedule, including rules for accommodating customer drop-in requests.
Establish and maintain item-master planning parameters, including lead times, lot sizes, safety stocks, and reorder points; maintain data integrity and adjust lead times as delivery patterns change.
Convert customer demand, including portal downloads and EDI forecasts and releases, into correctly formatted ERP orders and schedules.
Run MRP and issue work orders that balance manpower, machine utilization, and inventory levels.
Re-plan schedules in response to demand changes, supply-chain disruptions, unplanned absences, and equipment downtime.
Coordinate and monitor daily production output, scheduling commitments, on-time releases, and overdue releases.
Own and report KPIs, including schedule adherence or plan attainment, on-time delivery, past-due backlog, inventory turns, forecast accuracy, and capacity utilization.
Partner with purchasing to ensure sufficient parts and materials are available against the plan.
Establish production-planning processes in collaboration with sales, engineering, purchasing, quality, and manufacturing.
Communicate effectively with internal teams and external customers about commitments, expedites, and changes.
Generate reports and analyses to assess planning strategies and identify improvement opportunities.
Identify root causes of misses, propose corrective actions, and communicate performance metrics to stakeholders.
Drive measurable reductions in past-due backlog and improve schedule stability over time.