Inventory Planning Specialist

This role serves as a key member of the Inventory Planning team, responsible for maintaining inventory availability across Stratas' distribution network through proactive inventory analysis, deployment planning, and cross-functional coordination. The Inventory Planning Specialist independently identifies inventory risks, develops recommendations, and partners with manufacturing, transportation, customer service, and sales to optimize inventory performance while minimizing customer service disruptions.

This role combines analytical problem-solving with cross-functional collaboration and offers an excellent opportunity for a supply chain professional to develop expertise in inventory planning, distribution, and supply chain operations. Successful candidates are naturally curious, proactive, and motivated to identify opportunities for improvement rather than simply react to issues as they arise.

A successful candidate will:

• Take ownership of inventory challenges and drive issues to resolution.
• Anticipate inventory risks and proactively recommend solutions.
• Build strong working relationships with manufacturing sites, warehouses, and business partners.
• Continuously look for opportunities to improve processes and reporting.
• Thrive in a fast-paced environment with changing priorities.
• Demonstrate initiative, curiosity, and a willingness to learn.

• Analyze inventory trends and identify potential shortages, excess inventory, or deployment risks before they impact operations.
• Investigate inventory discrepancies and partner with warehouse, manufacturing, internal sales and supply chain teams to determine root causes and corrective actions.
• Support inventory tracking and visibility across Stratas facilities and 3PL location.

• Create, schedule, and process distribution orders (DOs) between Stratas facilities and third-party warehouses.
• Own visibility of inventory transfers and proactively resolve delays, exceptions, or inventory balancing issues.
• Communicate daily with manufacturing sites, warehouses, and 3PL partners regarding inventory availability and order status.
• Coordinate inventory deployment activities to support customer demand, promotions, new product launches, and seasonal requirements.

• Serve as a point of contact for inventory and distribution-related questions from internal teams.
• Communicate inventory concerns, order delays, and distribution updates to appropriate stakeholders.
• Work closely with Sales, Customer Service, Transportation, Manufacturing, and Operations teams to support business needs.
• Participate in process improvement initiatives related to inventory management and distribution operations.

• Support updates to standard operating procedures and work instructions.
• Ensure timely and accurate data entry and transaction processing.
• Assist with audits, reporting requests, and inventory-related projects as needed.