Manufacturing Manager - Materials, Planning and Execution

Essential Responsibilities

• Drive a zero-tolerance environment for safety infractions.
• Lead weekly meetings and cross-functional planning sessions with engineering, production, contracts, and finance stakeholders; communicate priorities clearly across all organizational levels.
• Lead, develop, and motivate a team of buyers, planners and inventory control analysts, maintain performance management, objective setting and scorecards.
• Ensure materials/production planning, buying, and inventory control support sales, product development, customer service, and production cost-effectively.
• Plan, organize, direct and support, monitor and control the staff and functions related to planning materials, buying and inventory control.
• Continuously review and monitor departmental performance to ensure corporate objectives are being met. Review actions, risks, and shortages, and drive forecasting and material planning to protect the production schedule.
• Manage the end-to-end supply chain, including materials/consumables suppliers, logistics service providers, and contract manufacturers; develop risk mitigation strategies (dual-sourcing, safety stock optimization) to ensure supply continuity.
• Identify any performance deficiencies and problems or opportunities for improvement in these areas of responsibility and take initiative to solve the problems and realize the opportunities.
• Identify specific cost reduction opportunities and take action to achieve cost reductions, or improve cost effectiveness, including introducing alternative sources where appropriate.
• Work effectively in co-operation with the Production Manager to develop and maintain efficient planning and operations in production, warehousing and materials handling.
• Drive for continuous inventory improvement and implement best practice models to ensure targets are achieved.
• Champion sustainability and ESG initiatives within the supply chain, supporting environmental practices such as packaging reduction.
• Drive digital transformation of materials management processes through automation, data analytics, and system integration to improve forecast accuracy and decision-making speed.