Material Planner

About the role

Material Planner is based at Ferrara's Thailand Manufacturing Facility in Eastern Seaboard Industrial Estate (Rayong) and serves as a key planning liaison between local manufacturing operations and the centralized Supply Planning organization located in Chicago, Illinois (OPO). The position requires frequent collaboration across multiple time zones with global Supply Chain, Demand Planning, Manufacturing, Commercialization, Procurement, and Logistics teams.

Want to Make an Impact?

• The Supply Planner is responsible for developing, maintaining, and optimizing supply plans that support customer demand and business objectives across short-term (5-8 weeks), mid-term (9-16 weeks), and long-term (17 weeks - 48 months) planning horizons.
• This role serves as the primary planning partner between the Thailand manufacturing operation’s Detailed Schedulers and Ferrara's centralized Supply Planning organization. The position balances service, inventory, capacity, and production constraints while supporting a diverse portfolio of global brands produced in Thailand and distributed across international markets.
• Success in this role requires strong analytical capabilities, cross-functional collaboration, and the ability to effectively manage both Assemble-to-Order (ATO) and Make-to-Forecast (MTF) planning strategies within a dynamic manufacturing environment.

Ways You Will Make a Difference

• Ensure supply plans align with customer demand, inventory objectives, production capacity, sourcing strategies, and service level expectations.

• Partner closely with Manufacturing, Detailed Scheduling, Procurement, Logistics, and Demand Planning teams to balance supply and demand requirements.

• Support the Integrated Business Planning (IBP) process through scenario modeling, risk identification, and recommendation development.

• Collaborate with centralized Supply Planning teams in Chicago to ensure alignment of global planning assumptions and priorities.

• Manage planning activities supporting both Assemble-to-Order and Make-to-Forecast operating models.

• Identify supply risks, capacity constraints, material shortages, and inventory exposures, while developing mitigation plans.

• Evaluate production and inventory tradeoffs and provide recommendations to leadership.

• Analyze forecast changes, demand variability, and inventory trends to improve planning performance.

• Lead root-cause analysis for service failures, inventory imbalances, or execution gaps and drive corrective actions.

• Participate in new product launches, commercialization activities, and network transitions to ensure supply readiness.

• Monitor key supply chain performance indicators including service levels, inventory health, plan attainment, and capacity utilization.

• Drive continuous improvement initiatives in planning processes, system utilization, and data quality.

Skills That Will Make You Successful

• Utilize SAP Integrated Business Planning (IBP) and other planning tools to generate, evaluate, and maintain supply plans.

• Support ongoing deployment and adoption of SAP IBP planning processes and capabilities.

• Strong mathematical, analytical and problem-solving skills

• Strong verbal, written, oral, and interpersonal communication skills

• Understanding of production capacities, constraints and cost/service trade-offs

• Demonstrated team leadership skills, including ability to identify and resolve issues/opportunities

• Detail oriented, self-starter and comfortable taking initiative, as well as capable of producing high quality results on a sustainable basis

• Strong computer skills, including MS Excel, PowerPoint are required, including management of complex data sets

• Ability to multi-task in a fast-paced environment

Experiences That Will Support Your Success

• 3+ years of experience in Supply Planning, Production Planning, Manufacturing Planning, Demand Planning, or related supply chain functions.

• Experience supporting manufacturing operations in a consumer products, food, confectionery, or packaged goods environment preferred.

• Experience balancing service, inventory, and capacity tradeoffs within a manufacturing environment.

• Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities with the ability to translate planning insights into actionable recommendations.

• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint.

• Experience with SAP ERP systems required; SAP IBP experience preferred.

• Experience with Power BI or similar analytics platforms preferred.

• Fluency in Thai and English required, including written and verbal communication skills.