Production Planner

Position Summary

The Planning & Scheduling Specialist is responsible for developing, maintaining, and optimizing production plans in an electronics manufacturing and assembly environment. This role ensures efficient utilization of production capacity, timely material availability, and adherence to customer delivery commitments. The specialist collaborates closely with production, engineering, purchasing, and quality teams to align demand, capacity, and resources while driving schedule stability and operational efficiency.

Key Responsibilities

1. Production Planning & Scheduling

• Develop detailed production schedules based on demand forecasts, customer orders, material availability, and capacity constraints.
• Maintain and update the Master Production Schedule (MPS) and shop floor schedules.
• Balance workloads across SMT, assembly, testing, and final packaging operations.
• Prioritize jobs based on customer urgency, expedite requests, and operational priorities.

1. Material & Supply Coordination

• Collaborate with purchasing and material planning teams to ensure component availability.
• Identify material shortages and coordinate mitigation plans (alternate parts, pull-ins, substitutions).
• Align material readiness with production starts to prevent line downtime.

1. Capacity Management

• Analyze equipment and labor capacity for SMT lines, assembly stations, and test areas.
• Recommend short-term and long-term capacity adjustments (overtime, shift planning, load leveling).
• Maintain cycle-time and throughput data to improve scheduling accuracy.

1. Monitoring & Control

• Track work order progress and identify risks to delivery commitments.
• Coordinate real-time schedule adjustments due to unexpected issues (machine downtime, quality holds, material delays).
• Provide daily/weekly reports on schedule adherence, WIP status, and constraint areas.

1. Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work with engineering on new product introductions (NPI) to integrate builds into the production schedule.
• Communicate schedule changes to stakeholders including production supervisors, customer service, and management.
• Participate in daily production meetings and support problem resolution.

1. Continuous Improvement

• Analyze bottlenecks, cycle times, and workflow inefficiencies in electronics assembly operations.
• Implement planning best practices such as pull systems, line balancing, and WIP control.
• Support Lean/Kaizen projects to improve flow, reduce changeover time, and increase capacity stability.