Sr. Manager of Strategic Planning

Job Description

Job Description

Gwynedd Manufacturing is a rapidly growing defense contractor and advanced manufacturing facility located in North Wales, PA. We proudly support the U.S. Department of Defense and federal law enforcement agencies by designing and manufacturing precision firearms, weapon components, and accessories. As we continue to grow, we are seeking experienced leaders who thrive in fast-paced manufacturing environments and are passionate about operational excellence.

Position Summary

The Senior Manager of Strategic Planning is responsible for leading the company's enterprise planning function and serving as the operational control center for manufacturing. Reporting to the Director of Operations, this role oversees Production Planning, Master Scheduling, Production Control, Demand Planning, Capacity Planning, Forecasting, and Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP).

This leader will translate customer demand and business priorities into executable manufacturing plans while balancing capacity, labor, materials, and inventory across multiple manufacturing operations. The ideal candidate is a strategic leader with strong analytical skills, ERP expertise, and a proven ability to build scalable planning organizations that drive operational performance.

What You'll Accomplish

Leadership & Planning

• Lead and develop the Planning organization, including Production Planning, Scheduling, Production Control, Demand Planning, and Planning Analytics.
• Manage and mentor planning personnel while establishing a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Serve as the primary decision-maker for production prioritization and resource balancing across manufacturing operations.

Production Planning & Scheduling

• Develop and maintain integrated master production schedules that align customer demand with manufacturing capacity.
• Improve schedule attainment, production execution, and on-time delivery performance.
• Lead cross-functional planning meetings and proactively resolve scheduling or capacity constraints.

Capacity Planning & Forecasting

• Develop labor, equipment, and capacity planning models.
• Partner with Sales and Operations to improve forecasting accuracy and translate demand into executable production plans.
• Identify bottlenecks and support long-range growth planning.

Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP)

• Design, implement, and lead the company's S&OP process.
• Facilitate monthly planning reviews to align demand, supply, inventory strategy, and production capacity.
• Drive cross-functional decision making through data-driven planning.

ERP & Process Improvement

• Serve as the business owner for Epicor planning and scheduling functions.
• Improve ERP data integrity, planning workflows, reporting, and system utilization.
• Develop executive KPI dashboards that improve operational visibility and decision making.

Continuous Improvement

• Analyze operational performance and recommend improvements in delivery, throughput, inventory, lead time, and capacity utilization.
• Lead root cause investigations and planning process improvements that support continued company growth.

First-Year Objectives

First 30 Days

• Assess the current planning and scheduling environment.
• Stabilize production scheduling processes.
• Develop an integrated production plan across manufacturing operations.
• Identify planning deficiencies within Epicor.
• Establish planning governance and reporting standards.

First 90 Days

• Improve on-time delivery and schedule attainment.
• Launch a formal S&OP process.
• Increase forecasting accuracy and capacity planning visibility.
• Standardize ERP planning data.
• Develop executive KPI reporting.
• Build a scalable planning organization to support future growth.

Key Performance Indicators

Success in this role will be measured by improvements in:

• On-Time Delivery (OTD)
• Schedule Adherence
• Forecast Accuracy
• Capacity Utilization
• Inventory Accuracy
• Manufacturing Lead Time
• Work-in-Process (WIP)
• ERP Data Integrity
• Backlog Management
• Customer Promise Date Performance
• Revenue Throughput