SR DEMAND PLANNER

MegaMex Foods LLC•Orange, CA

2d•Onsite

About The Position

The Senior Demand Planner will be responsible for maintaining accurate volume forecasting for the total organization. This information feeds production planning, and requires frequent communication with marketing, sales, logistics, operations, and finance/FP&A personnel.

Requirements

B.A. or an equivalent; or five plus years of experience and/or training; or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
Excellent verbal and written communications and oral presentation skills; Ability to effectively present information to top management, public groups, and/or boards of directors; Fluency in Spanish is a plus.
Excellent math, analytical, problem solving and evaluation skills; Strong leadership and interpersonal skills; Ability to work with mathematical concepts such as probability and statistical inference, and fundamentals of plane and solid geometry and trigonometry. Ability to apply concepts such as fractions, percentages, ratios, and proportions to practical situations.
Knowledge of most commonly used business systems and software applications in addition to Windows Office and how these systems relate to business processes.

Nice To Haves

Fluency in Spanish is a plus.
Experience in o9 is a plus.

Responsibilities

Work alongside Data Analytics to assign, design, and maintain high-integrity statistical baseline forecasts. Apply various time-series models to optimize the "best-fit" signal.
Orchestrate the disaggregation of the consensus demand plan across multiple hierarchies, including SKU, Product Family, Ship-from Location, and Key Account levels, ensuring alignment between top-down financial targets and bottom-up operational reality.
Lead the Demand Review phase of the monthly IBP/S&OP cycle. This includes preparing diagnostic data, facilitating cross-functional consensus between Sales, Marketing, and Finance, and ensuring all assumptions (market trends, cannibalization, white space) are documented.
Serve as the Final Approval Authority and gatekeeper for the 24-month consensus demand plan. Systematically challenge, adjudicate, and override discrepancies between Commercial 'unconstrained' projections and data-driven statistical models to ensure a realistic, bias-free signal; own the ultimate accountability for the resulting Forecast Accuracy and Bias KPIs.
Own the accuracy suite, specifically MAPE (Mean Absolute Percentage Error), WMAPE, and Forecast Bias. Conduct deep-dive RCAs on "Value-Add" metrics to determine if manual enrichments improved or degraded the statistical baseline.
Collaborate with Supply Planning to align demand volatility with Safety Stock targets, ensuring that the demand signal directly informs the optimal Inventory Policy.
Model demand for New Product Introductions (NPI) using attribute-based modeling or "look-alike" profiles. Manage the phase-out of End-of-Life (EOL) items to minimize Excess & Obsolete (E&O) exposure.
Integrate trade promotion calendars and marketing "lift" expectations into the rolling forecast, ensuring "pulse" demand is clearly differentiated from "base" demand for the supply team.
Maintain a rolling 18–24 month consensus demand signal within the o9 planning environment (and maybe outside depending on data integration challenges) to drive long-range procurement and capacity requirements.
Develop the 5-year strategic demand outlook to support the Annual Operating Plan (AOP) and CapEx investment decisions for manufacturing footprints.
Serve as the functional Subject Matter Expert (SME) for demand planning software. Ensure Master Data integrity (product hierarchies, calendar alignments, and location mapping) is maintained to prevent systemic planning errors.
Proactively communicate demand shifts to Deployment and Supply Planning/Operations. Highlight "At-Risk" items where demand exceeds demonstrated capacity or where significant "undersell" threatens warehouse utilization.
Perform "What-If" scenario analysis to evaluate the impact of supply disruptions, price changes, or competitor activity on the demand plan.
Other duties as assigned