Production Planner

Job Description

Job Description

Want to be part of building our wireless world? Technology like 5G and IoT aids emergency responders, enables intelligent warehouses and factories, increases safety on college campuses, helps energy companies provide better service, improves safety and efficiency of various modes of transportation, and more. It enhances the consumer experience for things like entertainment, shopping, and communications. In fact, wireless technology touches every aspect of our daily lives.

Building Our Wireless World, Together®.

The Production Planner is responsible for planning and coordinating production-related activities within the distribution center, including kitting, cable cutting, labeling, packaging, and other value-added services.

This position is located on-site in Lewisville, TX.

A key responsibility of this position is supporting one of Tessco's major customers. The Production Planner will serve as the primary operational planning contact for the customer, translating forecasts, project requirements, sales orders, deployment schedules, and changing priorities into actionable production and material plans.

This position develops and maintains production schedules based on customer demand, inventory availability, labor capacity, equipment capacity, project timelines, and required shipment dates. The Production Planner works closely with the customer and with internal Warehouse Operations, Inventory Control, Purchasing, Customer Service, Sales, and Operation teams to ensure commitments are understood and completed on time.

Essential Duties and ResponsibilitiesCustomer Planning

• Serve as the primary operational planning contact for the assigned customer.
• Build a strong working relationship with the customer's supply chain, operations, procurement, and project-management representatives.
• Participate in recurring customer planning, forecast, project-readiness, and order-status meetings.
• Review customer forecasts, deployment schedules, project requirements, sales orders, requested delivery dates, and priority changes.
• Translate customer demand into production schedules, labor plans, and capacity projections.
• Coordinate planning for products and services, including cable cutting, assemblies, kits, configured products, project-specific packaging, labeling, and staged deployments.
• Understand customer-specific product specifications, labeling standards, packaging instructions, documentation requirements, and shipping expectations.
• Provide the Tessco Project Management team with accurate updates on material availability, production status, expected completion dates, shortages, backlogs, and orders at risk.
• Establish realistic completion dates based on current inventory, capacity, lead times, and operational constraints.
• Proactively communicate potential delays or service risks and provide recovery plans or alternative solutions.
• Document customer decisions, priority changes, forecast revisions, and delivery commitments.
• Coordinate expedited or emergency requirements while evaluating the effect on existing production and customer commitments.
• Maintain confidentiality of customer forecasts, pricing, project plans, network deployment information, and other sensitive business information.
• Monitor compliance with applicable customer service-level agreements, performance expectations, and contractual requirements.
• Support business reviews by preparing customer-specific operational metrics, risks, accomplishments, and improvement plans.

Production Planning and Scheduling

• Develop daily, weekly, and longer-range production schedules based on customer demand, open sales orders, inventory availability, production capacity, and required ship dates.
• Review open work orders and prioritize production according to customer commitments, project schedules, and operational capacity.
• Release and maintain work orders in NetSuite or the applicable ERP system.
• Sequence work to maximize labor and equipment utilization while minimizing changeovers, downtime, scrap, and unnecessary material movement.
• Coordinate assembly, kitting, cable cutting, labeling, packaging, configuration, and other value-added production activities.
• Adjust production schedules when demand, material availability, staffing, equipment, or customer priorities change.
• Identify orders at risk of missing their scheduled completion or shipment dates.
• Maintain visibility of production backlogs, aging work orders, scheduled demand, and expected completion dates.
• Develop recovery plans for delayed or past-due orders.

Inventory and Material Coordination

• Confirm that required components, cable, reels, raw materials, packaging, labels, and finished goods are available before work is scheduled.
• Identify material shortages and communicate requirements to Purchasing, Inventory Control, Operations, and the customer when appropriate.
• Monitor production staging and receiving bins to ensure materials are available and properly allocated.
• Assist with resolving inventory discrepancies that affect production schedules or customer commitments.
• Coordinate the disposition of unused, excess, damaged, obsolete, or substituted materials.
• Support accurate material consumption, production completion, and inventory transactions.
• Monitor excess and obsolete inventory resulting from forecast changes, project cancellations, or product revisions.

Cross-Functional Coordination

• Serve as the communication link between operations and Project Management team
• Lead or participate in daily internal production-planning meetings.
• Communicate production priorities, customer requirements, and schedule changes to supervisors and production employees.
• Provide Project Management, Sales, and account-management teams with realistic completion and shipment dates.
• Escalate material shortages, capacity constraints, equipment issues, specification questions, and other risks that may affect customer commitments.
• Coordinate with Shipping to ensure completed products are available before scheduled carrier pickups or project deployment dates.
• Partner with warehouse leadership to balance production requirements with receiving, picking, packing, and shipping workloads.
• Coordinate the operational response to customer escalations and follow issues through resolution.
• Ensure internal teams receive clear and consistent information regarding customer priorities and commitments.

System and Data Management

• Create, review, update, and close production work orders in NetSuite or the applicable ERP/WMS.
• Monitor work order status from release through completion and shipment.
• Investigate work orders that are delayed, uncommitted, incorrectly staged, or unable to be processed.
• Develop and maintain saved searches, reports, dashboards, or spreadsheets used to track customer demand and production performance.
• Maintain customer order trackers, shortage reports, production plans, and action-item logs.
• Ensure production and customer-related transactions are completed accurately and promptly.

Performance Monitoring and Continuous Improvement

• Track planned production against actual production.
• Monitor schedule attainment, backlog, work order aging, labor utilization, material shortages, forecast accuracy, and on-time completion.
• Analyze customer service failures, production delays, and recurring scheduling problems.
• Perform root-cause analysis and coordinate corrective actions.
• Identify opportunities to improve production flow, staging, material availability, communication, and order visibility.
• Support slotting and layout improvements that reduce travel and handling.
• Participate in inventory-accuracy, cycle-counting, quality, and operational-improvement initiatives.
• Assist with developing and maintaining customer-specific procedures, work instructions, and planning documentation.

Key Performance Indicators

Performance may be measured using the following:

• Customer on-time and in-full delivery
• Production schedule attainment
• On-time work order completion
• Customer forecast accuracy
• Customer-requested date performance
• Production backlog and work order aging
• Planned versus actual production output
• Material shortage frequency
• Customer escalation frequency and resolution time
• Compliance with customer service-level agreements
• Accuracy and timeliness of customer status reporting
• Production downtime caused by planning or material issues
• Work order and inventory transaction accuracy
• Inventory accuracy for production and customer-specific materials
• Labor and equipment capacity utilization
• Rework, scrap, and material variance
• Excess and obsolete inventory associated with forecast changes
• Accuracy of promised completion dates

Required Qualifications

• High school diploma or equivalent required.
• Associate or bachelor's degree in supply chain management, operations, business, logistics, telecommunications, or a related field preferred.
• Three or more years of experience in production planning, scheduling, warehouse operations, inventory control, supply chain coordination, or customer account planning.
• Experience supporting a major customer account or working directly with external customers preferred.
• Experience in telecommunications distribution, cable products, network infrastructure, electronics, or a related industry strongly preferred.
• Experience working in a distribution center, light manufacturing, assembly, kitting, cable cutting, or value-added services environment preferred.
• Experience creating and maintaining production schedules, forecasts, and work orders.
• Working knowledge of inventory control, material planning, bills of material, capacity planning, and order fulfillment.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Excel, including formulas, lookups, pivot tables, filters, and data analysis.
• Experience with NetSuite, RF-SMART, or a comparable ERP/WMS system preferred.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Strong customer-facing communication and relationship-management skills.
• Ability to communicate operational constraints clearly while maintaining a positive customer relationship.
• Strong planning, prioritization, and organizational skills.
• Ability to manage changing customer priorities in a fast-paced distribution environment.
• Strong analytical, forecasting, and problem-solving abilities.
• Ability to identify risks early and develop practical recovery plans.
• Excellent written, verbal, and presentation skills.
• Strong attention to detail and data accuracy.
• Ability to interpret forecasts, sales orders, work orders, inventory reports, bills of material, project schedules, and production plans.
• Ability to balance customer requirements with available labor, materials, equipment, and warehouse capacity.
• Ability to manage competing priorities and negotiate realistic completion dates.
• Ability to maintain professionalism when handling customer escalations or service issues.
• Ability to work effectively with employees and leaders across multiple departments.
• General understanding of telecommunications products, terminology, infrastructure projects, or deployment cycles is preferred.
• Understanding of warehouse safety, quality, and inventory-control practices.

Supervisory Responsibilities

This position does not normally have direct reports. However, the Production Planner provides production priorities and planning direction to production supervisors and employees. The planner may also lead customer and internal planning meetings and coordinate activities across departments.

Physical Requirements

• Ability to work in both an office and warehouse environment.
• Ability to walk through production and warehouse areas regularly.
• Ability to stand or walk for extended periods when reviewing production activities.
• Ability to occasionally lift and move materials weighing up to [25–50] pounds.
• Ability to work around forklifts, production equipment, cable-cutting equipment, and warehouse traffic.
• Ability to wear required personal protective equipment.

Work Environment and Schedule

The position operates in a distribution center environment with exposure to warehouse traffic, material-handling equipment, noise, and changing temperatures. The normal schedule is M-F 7am – 4pm but occasional overtime, early-morning, evening, or weekend work may be required based on customer demand, telecommunications project schedules, and operational needs.

Limited travel to customer locations, project meetings, or other distribution centers may be required.

We provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.