Materials & Purchasing Planner

Position Summary

The Materials & Purchasing Planner is the primary owner of daily production planning and execution for Applied Information’s electronics manufacturing operations.

Although not titled as a Production Manager, this role runs day-to-day production planning, sets work order priorities, and directs the flow of work on the production floor in close coordination with the Director of Production and the Production Supervisor.

This position also serves as the sole Buyer and Materials Planner, responsible for ensuring that materials, components, and subassemblies are available to support the production plan.

This is a production-driven leadership role, not a logistics, freight, or import and export position. Success in this role requires hands-on experience running production schedules, releasing work orders, and reacting in real time to material and build constraints in an electronics manufacturing environment.

• Production Planning and Execution Leadership (Primary Responsibility)
• Lead and run daily production planning, acting as the planning authority for the production floor.
• Develop, release, and adjust daily and weekly work orders based on material availability, production capacity, and customer delivery commitments.
• Set build priorities and production sequencing for the manufacturing team.
• Direct production flow to ensure maximum throughput and on-time completion.
• Actively resolve production blockers related to materials, bill of materials accuracy, or component constraints.
• Partner daily with the Director of Production and the Production Supervisor to manage output, staffing alignment, and schedule changes.

• Serve as the only Buyer and Materials Planner for the organization.
• Convert production plans and material requirements planning signals into actionable purchase orders.
• Procure electronic components including printed circuit boards, integrated circuits, semiconductors, connectors, power supplies, antennas, enclosures, and assemblies.
• Manage long-lead-time, allocation-controlled, and high-risk components.
• Maintain planning parameters including supplier lead times, safety stock levels, and order quantities.
• Track end-of-life notifications, approved alternates, and substitutions in coordination with Engineering.

• Provide daily direction to production technicians regarding build priorities and sequencing.
• Lead daily production planning discussions and material readiness reviews.
• Coordinate with the Production Supervisor to ensure labor is aligned with the production plan.
• Escalate risks, constraints, and mitigation plans directly to the Director of Production.

• Balance inventory levels to support uninterrupted production while minimizing excess and obsolete inventory.
• Monitor material shortages, aging inventory, and inventory exposure risks.
• Ensure accurate enterprise resource planning system transactions for work orders, kits, receipts, and material issues.
• Support cycle counts and inventory accuracy initiatives.

• Manage supplier relationships and delivery performance.
• Communicate production forecasts and demand changes to suppliers.
• Support new product introductions by ensuring material readiness.
• Participate in engineering change orders to ensure production continuity.

• Maintain accurate production and purchasing data in enterprise resource planning and material requirements planning systems such as Net Suite, Epicor, SAP, or Oracle.
• Use Microsoft Excel and system reporting tools to manage production plans and shortages.
• Support compliance with International Organization for Standardization quality system requirements, such as ISO 9001 or ISO 13485, as applicable.
• Continuously improve production planning and materials execution processes.

• Five to eight years of experience in production planning, materials planning, or buyer and planner roles within an electronics or hardware manufacturing environment.
• Demonstrated experience running daily production schedules and work orders.
• Experience acting as the production planning lead in a manufacturing operation.
• Strong hands-on experience using enterprise resource planning systems tied directly to production execution.

• Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain Management, Manufacturing, Engineering, or a related field

• Strong understanding of:
• Production scheduling and work order execution
• Electronics bill of materials structures and revision control
• Material constraints and lead-time management
• Inventory control in a production environment
• Strong decision-making and prioritization skills.
• Comfortable directing production activity without formal people management authority.
• Confident, hands-on presence on the manufacturing floor.

• Experience in high-mix, low-volume…