Production Planner

Novanta Inc.•Bedford, MA

6d•$70,180 - $91,300

About The Position

The Production Planner for Precision Manufacturing coordinates production to ensure timely and efficient product delivery by managing schedules, inventory, and cross-functional communication. This role partners with Customer Care, Sales, Product Management, and Operations to develop production plans that align with customer demand and business priorities, while serving as the subject matter expert for Oracle MRP to drive planning accuracy and efficiency. The Production Planner evaluates factors such as raw material availability, production capacity, and standard lead times to maintain on-time delivery and respond to changing business needs. Acting as the interface to Sales, this role translates SIOP forecasts into actionable production schedules and collaborates with Buyers to optimize inventory levels, support just-in-time material flow, and reduce inefficiencies such as excess changeovers. Precision Manufacturing produces high-precision components for Novanta’s automation technologies, supporting medical, industrial, and robotics applications. The team focuses on tight-tolerance machining, process control, and quality, partnering with engineering and supply chain to ensure manufacturability, scalability, and on-time delivery while driving continuous improvement.

Requirements

Bachelor’s Degree in an analytical field
3+ years’ experience in manufacturing, production management or production planning
Knowledge of and experience in Oracle, planning, production scheduling, and shipping functionality and processes
Knowledge of and experience in the master data (such as BOMs Routings, Item Master Attributes, etc.) that drives the forecasting, planning, production scheduling, and shipping functionality in Oracle
Knowledge of and experience in inventory management principles
Knowledge of and experience in production scheduling principles
Knowledge of and experience in mathematics and statistical data

Nice To Haves

American Production and Inventory Control Society (APICS) certification (preferred)
Certified in Production and Inventory Management (CPIM) (preferred)

Responsibilities

Responsible for complex fulfillment and production plans participates in system or process improvement initiatives to ensure the function has the best tools
Review and revise production and fulfillment plan as required by changes in the manufacturing schedules
Act as a liaison between Manufacturing, Customer Care, Sales and Product Management, communicating and troubleshooting issues, problems, and concerns
Analyzes production plans and inventory reports, availability / requirements for long lead time items to provide production guidance to the manufacturing sites.
Assist in the expediting finished goods, when necessary, to support customer order fulfillment
Recommend and implement production and transportation actions when products are in out-of-stock or allocation situations.
Partners with management/departments on matters related to production or fulfillment planning.
Utilize Oracle to view material movements, quantities on order, and the current balance on hand to ensure materials needed by the manufacturing plants are available and use this information to analyze trends and plan for future orders.
Must maintain a well-balanced focus between external and internal customer requirements and possesses