MEKRA Lang North America Verified
Automotive Manufacturing
Material Planner Manager
Ridgeway, SCOnsiteFull TimeManager / HeadPosted 2 months agoVisa sponsorship available
Required skills
- Automotive Industry
- Material Planning
- Production Planning
- Supply Chain
- Supplier Scheduling
- MRP
- Inventory Control
- Supplier Releases
- ERP
- SAP
Nice to have
- Automotive Mirror Manufacturing
- Assembly Operations
- Plastic Components
- Electronics
- Harnesses
- Tier 1 Environment
Role summary
A Material Planner Manager is sought to lead a team in ensuring the timely availability of materials for automotive manufacturing. This role involves managing supplier schedules, monitoring inventory, and coordinating with various departments to translate customer demand into reliable material plans. The manager will also lead recovery efforts for shortages and prepare key supply chain performance reports. A strong understanding of automotive manufacturing, MRP, ERP systems (SAP preferred), and data analysis is essential, along with at least 5 years of leadership experience in material planning or supply chain.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead, coach, and develop the Material Planning team.
- Ensure timely availability of purchased and intercompany materials to support customer demand and production schedules.
- Manage supplier schedules, releases, confirmations, and material forecasts in alignment with MRP requirements.
- Monitor shortages, past-due supplier deliveries, inventory risks, and production-impacting material constraints.
- Coordinate daily with Customer Service, Production, Purchasing, Logistics, Warehouse, Quality, and Suppliers.
- Translate customer demand and production requirements into reliable material plans and supplier priorities.
- Lead shortage meetings, escalation processes, recovery plans, and supplier follow-up actions.
- Optimize inventory levels while protecting production continuity and customer delivery performance.
- Support program launches, engineering changes, phase-in/phase-out activities, and obsolescence control.
- Prepare supply chain KPIs and management reports, including material availability, supplier performance, inventory turns, excess/obsolete inventory, and root-cause actions.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain Management, Industrial Engineering, Logistics, Business Administration, or related field.
- Minimum 10 years of automotive industry experience.
- Minimum 5 years in material planning, production planning, supply chain, or supplier scheduling leadership.
- Strong understanding of automotive manufacturing, MRP, inventory control, supplier releases, and production planning.
- ERP experience required; SAP experience strongly preferred.
- Advanced Microsoft Excel and strong data analysis capability.
- Experience managing supplier performance, shortages, delivery escalations, and material recovery plans.
- Strong analytical, organizational, and communication skills with high sense of urgency.
- Fluent English, written and spoken, mandatory.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience in automotive mirror manufacturing, assembly operations, plastic components, electronics, harnesses, or similar Tier 1 environment.
- APICS CPIM/CSCP, Lean Manufacturing, or supply chain certification is a plus.
- Experience with JIT, Kanban, min-max planning, supplier scorecards, and premium freight reduction.
- Experience supporting launch, ramp-up, engineering changes, and supply base stabilization.
Monday - Thursday 7 am - 5.30 pm
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