Sr. Planning Manager

SUMMARY: The Senior Planning Manager – Systems is a key leadership role within the Custom Hydraulic Systems business unit, responsible for driving operational excellence through proactive planning, team leadership, and cross-functional coordination. This position oversees planning activities across multiple manufacturing sites (both on-site and remote). It ensures seamless execution of order fulfillment, material readiness, and production scheduling in alignment with customer commitments. The role serves as the primary operations liaison for the business unit and plays a critical part in enhancing customer satisfaction, operational efficiency, and revenue delivery.

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each primary duty satisfactorily. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Planning Leadership & Team Development

• Lead and mentor a team of planners across multiple manufacturing locations, fostering a high-performance and accountable culture.
• Establish standard planning processes, performance metrics, and continuous improvement initiatives to drive consistency and scalability.
• Partner with operations, engineering, and sales to align planning strategy with business goals and capacity constraints.

Cross-Functional Project Coordination

• Serve as the primary escalation point for complex project or order issues; ensure rapid and effective resolution.
• Drive cross-functional communication to ensure timely delivery of engineered systems, including maintaining project timelines, production packets, and job traveler documentation.
• Facilitate planning meetings to coordinate schedules, milestones, and material readiness with key stakeholders.

Order Management & Customer Fulfillment

• Oversee order intake, including customer PO review, order acknowledgment, change order management, and invoicing.
• Manage ERP data integrity, ensuring accurate component entries, routing, and BOM alignment.
• Act as the voice of the customer internally—translating commercial requirements into operational action.

Material Planning & Procurement Oversight

• Collaborate with Procurement to ensure availability of required materials; assist with vendor communication to mitigate delays and expedite delivery.
• Monitor and coordinate material staging, job kits, and inventory transactions to support production readiness.
• Support non-conforming material processes, freight claims, and stock replenishment strategies

Scheduling & Reporting

• Develop and maintain detailed production schedules across multiple sites; adjust proactively to reflect changes in demand or capacity.
• Generate and distribute key planning and production reports to inform leadership and support decision-making.
• Provide data-driven insights on backlog, capacity utilization, and on-time delivery performance.

Customer & Internal Stakeholder Communication

• Ensure transparency of planning status and order progress with internal teams and customers.
• Support quoting and product configuration processes by providing lead time, cost, and availability inputs.
• Lead resolution of customer return issues in collaboration with service and quality teams.
• Perform other duties as assigned.