Sr. Manufacturing Financial Analyst

TREW•Mason, OH

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior Manufacturing Plant Financial Analyst is the senior finance professional embedded at the plant, reporting to a Plant Controller. The role owns detailed analysis of manufacturing cost performance, including material variances, plant expenses, budgets, and forecasts, and carries delegated Plant Controller responsibility for assigned sites. It is an operational finance role that involves working on the plant floor as well as analyzing financial records, tracing variances to their sources, and partnering with operations, sourcing, and engineering to resolve them. The position is described as the primary development path into Plant Controller. The analyst owns end-to-end material variance analysis, plant operating expense analysis, and the plant’s actual-to-plan and forward-looking financial analysis. The role supports standard cost updates, budgeting and rolling forecasts, cost reduction and productivity initiatives, capital expenditure analysis, monthly business reviews, and plant leadership decision-making. It also develops plant dashboards and self-service reporting using Power BI and supports the recurring finance calendar, close activities, inventory controls, and audits. This is a hybrid position with approximately three days per week in the office. The work is primarily desk-based, with regular computer use and the ability to traverse the office and manufacturing facility. The job description notes prolonged sitting and computer work and occasional lifting up to 15 pounds.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, or a related field.
At least 5 years of progressive manufacturing finance experience, including demonstrated ownership of plant-level analysis for a production site.
Strong working knowledge of standard costing, manufacturing variance analysis, inventory accounting, and absorption.
Month-end close experience in a manufacturing environment, including journal entries, accruals, and account reconciliations.
Ability to work independently and carry analysis through to a recommendation without direction.
Advanced Excel skills, including working with large data sets, lookups, pivot tables, and model building.
Experience with an ERP system.
Ability to explain financial results clearly to people outside finance and hold a position with plant leadership.

Nice To Haves

NetSuite or Oracle experience.
Power BI experience.
Experience in a multi-site manufacturing organization.
Experience leading a physical inventory and supporting audit fieldwork.
CPA, CMA, or MBA, or active progress toward one.

Responsibilities

Own material variance analysis for assigned sites, including decomposition, root-cause analysis, and follow-through.
Analyze purchase price, material usage and yield, scrap and rework, substitutions, and standard-cost revaluation variances at actionable levels such as part number, commodity, supplier, work order, product family, and value stream.
Trace material variances to their sources, distinguish operational performance from data or timing issues, and correct underlying master data where appropriate.
Partner with sourcing on purchase price variance drivers, supplier and price changes, negotiated savings, and their reflection in standards and the P&L.
Support annual standard cost rolls and interim standard updates, including cost-change analysis and inventory revaluation impacts.
Review scrap and yield reporting with operations, validate quantities against inventory movement, and quantify cost of quality by line and part.
Maintain and improve recurring material variance reporting with commentary identifying causes and owners.
Analyze plant operating expenses by department and cost center, including labor, overtime, supplies, maintenance, utilities, freight, outside services, and other controllable spend.
Review labor and overhead absorption, rate and volume effects, under- and over-absorption, and production volume and mix impacts on fixed-cost recovery.
Identify spend drivers and adverse trends; validate close accruals and reclasses with the Plant Controller and Corporate Accounting.
Review open purchase orders and commitments against plan and highlight forecast risks.
Analyze headcount and labor hours against plan, including temporary labor, absenteeism, overtime, and labor cost relative to production output.
Support cost reduction and productivity initiatives by building baselines, quantifying expected savings, and verifying realized savings.
Prepare capital expenditure support, including payback and ROI analysis for plant projects and post-completion reviews.
Produce monthly variance analysis against budget, forecast, and prior year, with commentary naming the driver, amount, and owner.
Bridge plan-to-actual results by volume, mix, price, material cost, labor performance, absorption, and spend.
Support annual budget preparation for assigned sites by gathering departmental input, challenging assumptions, modeling scenarios, and consolidating the plant submission.
Support rolling forecasts, update the outlook for operational and demand changes, cost movements, and one-time items, and track forecast accuracy and recurring miss patterns.
Quantify risks and opportunities against the current outlook and maintain a running view of potential changes to plant results.
Prepare variance narratives and supporting schedules for monthly business reviews.
Partner with plant leadership in operating reviews and provide the financial perspective on operational performance.
Analyze and report operational KPIs, including cost per unit, labor efficiency and utilization, scrap and first-pass yield, on-time delivery, inventory turns, and overtime rates.
Connect operational metrics to financial outcomes, challenge assumptions, test reported improvements against P&L results, and raise concerns early.
Build and maintain plant dashboards and self-service reporting in Power BI, sourced from Synapse and NetSuite/Oracle.
Support continuous improvement and lean initiatives with baseline data, savings validation, and post-implementation measurement.
Provide ad hoc analysis for make-versus-buy decisions, capacity questions, pricing support, and operational trade-offs.
Help non-finance plant leaders understand standard costing, absorption, and variance mechanics.
Execute assigned month-end close tasks, including journal entries, accruals, account reconciliations, and inventory and cost-of-sales validation.
Reconcile perpetual inventory to the general ledger, investigate differences, and support resolution of transaction and timing issues.
Participate in physical inventory and cycle count programs, including planning support, count observation, variance analysis, and follow-up on count accuracy.
Analyze inventory levels, aging, excess and obsolete exposure, and reserve adequacy for assigned sites.
Work with the Sr Manager of Inventory and Costing on standard cost methodology, cost roll execution, and consistent costing practices across sites.
Work with the Financial Systems Analyst and FP&A Manager to maintain accurate plant reporting, data models, and hierarchies.
Maintain internal control discipline and support internal and external audit requests.
Document recurring analyses so they can be repeated, reviewed, and handed off.