Senior Manufacturing Planner

As a Senior Manufacturing Planner, you develop production schedules that balance customer demand, manufacturing capacity, material availability, and inventory targets. You determine what to produce, when, in what quantity, and on which lines. The senior title means you're handling the most complex product families or production environments, optimizing across multiple constraints, and improving planning processes.

Your day is a constant balancing act. You might review demand forecasts and adjust production plans, then negotiate with procurement about material delivery delays, then coordinate with operations about machine downtime, then reallocate production across lines to handle a rush order. You need strong analytical skills, MRP/ERP proficiency, and the diplomatic ability to manage competing priorities from sales, operations, and supply chain.

The reality is that plans change constantly. Customer orders change, machines break, materials arrive late, quality issues require rework. Your plan is never final — it's a living document that you're adjusting multiple times daily. The best planners accept this fluidity and build resilient schedules with contingencies rather than brittle "perfect" plans.