Senior Material Planner

Most weeks tend to involve MRP review, complex supplier coordination, exception handling, and the steady cadence of cross-functional sync — running senior-level planning analyses, working with strategic suppliers on critical deliveries, sitting with engineering and operations on material exceptions, supporting newer planners on tough cases. You're often the senior operational owner of what arrives and what doesn't. Inventory turns, supplier on-time delivery, and stockout incidents anchor the view.

Friction tends to come from the simultaneity of upstream and downstream volatility — suppliers shift lead times, demand signals move, and the senior planner finds the middle that limits damage. Variance across employers is sharp: at major manufacturers senior planning runs in mature ERP; at smaller firms or specialty manufacturers the senior planner runs Excel-and-relationships.

It fits people who are analytically deep, supplier-fluent, and steady under operating pressure. APICS CPIM and CSCP credentials anchor advancement. The trade-off is the daily friction of supply-demand mismatch — when things break, the senior planner is first to know and often last to resolve.