Production Planner – Wafer

FormFactor Inc.•Livermore, CA

82d•$104,600 - $137,235•Onsite

About The Position

The Senior Production Planner- Wafer is the wafer fab planning subject matter expert responsible for translating demand, capacity, material readiness, and manufacturing priorities into an integrated and executable fab plan. This role independently manages complex, re-entrant production flows across multiple process modules and planning horizons, establishes planning standards, and leads cross-functional resolution of constraints that affect wafer starts, cycle time, WIP, output, and on-time delivery. Operating with limited direction, this role develops scenarios and recommendations for leaders, aligns fab execution to the approved plan, and improves planning systems, data, and operating rhythms. The position influences Manufacturing, Process and Equipment Engineering, Supply Chain, Quality, Facilities, NPI, and business planning partners without direct authority.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain, Industrial Engineering, Operations Management, Engineering, Business, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
8+ years of progressive experience in production planning, scheduling, factory planning, industrial engineering, or manufacturing operations, including significant experience supporting semiconductor wafer fabrication or a similarly complex, capital-intensive manufacturing environment.
Demonstrated expertise planning re-entrant manufacturing flows and integrating demand, capacity, WIP, yield, cycle time, materials, and equipment constraints into executable schedules.
Advanced experience with ERP, MES, APS, or fab scheduling systems and strong analytical capability using Excel and business intelligence tools.
Proven ability to lead complex, cross-functional planning decisions, influence senior stakeholders, and communicate risks and trade-offs with clarity.
Ability to work onsite and support priority fab issues or planning changes outside regular hours when business needs require.
Experience with thin-film, photolithography, deposition, etch, plating, cleaning, metrology, or other semiconductor wafer fab process flows.
Experience with factory ramps, technology transfers, NPI, capacity expansions, and qualification planning.
Working knowledge of dispatching logic, constraint-based scheduling, cycle-time modeling, OEE, throughput, and statistical process or performance analysis.
Experience with Oracle, SAP, Kinaxis, OMP, or comparable planning platforms; MES experience in a semiconductor environment.
Lean, Six Sigma, APICS/ASCM, or related planning and continuous improvement credentials.
Minimum of 8 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 6 years and a Master’s degree; or a PhD with 3 years experience; or equivalent experience | Required

Responsibilities

Own the short-, mid-, and long-range wafer fab production plan, including wafer starts, lot release timing, module loading, completion projections, and recovery priorities.
Translate demand, backlog, forecasts, product mix, and customer priorities into finite, time-phased schedules across re-entrant wafer fabrication flows.
Balance cycle time, WIP, throughput, yield, capacity, material availability, and inventory objectives to create feasible plans and protect customer commitments.
Establish freeze windows, dispatch priorities, and planning parameters; manage pull-ins, pushouts, expedites, hot lots, engineering lots, and changes to the plan of record.
Identify and quantify constraints by process step, tool group, labor skill, mask layer, material, qualification status, and facility dependency.
Develop advanced scenarios for demand changes, product-mix shifts, tool downtime, yield loss, staffing gaps, qualification delays, and NPI ramps; present trade-offs and recommended actions.
Partner with Operations and Engineering to define recovery plans, alternate routings, load balancing, overtime or shift options, planned WIP banks, maintenance windows, and capital timing.
Escalate risks early with clear business impacts, assumptions, decision points, and options.
Lead daily and weekly planning reviews that connect the master plan to shop-floor execution, including starts, moves, completions, bottlenecks, WIP aging, and schedule adherence.
Monitor actual performance against plan and rapidly adjust schedules when output, cycle time, equipment availability, material readiness, or priorities change.
Coordinate with production control and manufacturing leaders on lot sequencing, dispatch rules, holds, release priorities, and recovery actions.
Maintain one aligned plan of record across ERP, MES, APS, dashboards, and stakeholder communications.
Integrate engineering lots, qualification builds, process-of-record changes, learning curves, and release gates into the fab plan without losing visibility to production commitments.
Create ramp plans for new products, process modules, tools, and transferred technologies, including capacity reservations and readiness dependencies.
Partner with NPI, Process Engineering, Equipment Engineering, Quality, and Supply Chain to assess readiness and resolve planning gaps before release.
Define planning assumptions for early-stage products and update them as yield, cycle time, routing, and throughput mature.
Own and govern planning-critical master data, including routings, cycle times, yields, lot sizes, queue times, calendars, tool groups, planning lead times, and planned downtime assumptions.
Develop decision-grade dashboards and analyses for wafer starts, WIP by operation and age, cycle time, move rates, schedule adherence, capacity versus load, recovery, and delivery risk.
Reconcile model assumptions to actual factory performance, identify root causes of variance, and improve planning accuracy.
Standardize planning methods, metrics, review cadences, and documentation across wafer fab planning activities.
Lead cross-functional improvements that reduce queue time, excess WIP, variability, and planning noise while improving flow, predictability, and throughput.
Apply fab physics, constraint management, Lean, and industrial engineering concepts to improve release strategies and schedule quality.
Coach planners and production control partners on complex planning methods, systems, and decision practices; provide technical guidance without formal people management responsibility.
Lead complex planning projects and represent wafer fab planning in site, SIOP, S&OE, NPI, and operational readiness forums.