Production & Supply Planner

Synthomer is a leading supplier of high-performance, highly specialised polymers and ingredients that play vital roles in key sectors such as coatings, construction, adhesives, and health and protection – growing markets that serve billions of end users worldwide. Headquartered in London, UK and publicly listed there since 1971, we employ c.3,900 employees across our 5 innovation centres of excellence and more than 29 manufacturing sites across Europe, North America and Asia.

Around 20% of our sales volumes are from new and patent protected products.

At our innovation centres of excellence in the UK, Germany, China, Malaysia and Ohio, USA we collaborate closely with our customers to develop new products and enhance existing ones tailored to their needs, with an increasing range of sustainability benefits. Since 2021, we have been proud holders of the London Stock Exchange Green Economy Mark, which recognises green technology businesses making a significant contribution to a more sustainable, low-carbon economy.

Would you like flexibility to work from home? Synthomer offers the ability to work 1 day from a home office environment.

Synthomer is seeking aProduction & Supply Planner to join our team. If you’re equally passionate about customer experience, supply chain, & continuous improvement, this opportunity may be for you! We are seeking an experienced supply chain professional with a background in production planning/scheduling and inventory management.

In this role, you will ensure Synthomer is providing a best-in-class customer experience by creating and managing a production plan / schedule to ensure on time delivery, optimized inventory levels, and equipment utilisation through data-driven analysis and decision making, and building relationships with our internal partners including our customer service, production, procurement, logistics, commercial teams (both domestic and international), and warehouses and distribution centres.

The position requires analytical skills, strong influence and communication skills, and the ability to develop and execute complex plans in support of business, customer and manufacturing strategies. The duties include (but are not limited) to the following:

• Own, create and manage a weekly/daily SAP production schedule in alignment with Integrated Business Plan Master Production Schedule to ensure on time delivery, optimized inventory levels, and equipment utilisation and efficiency.
• Communicate plan/schedule to all stakeholders.
• Drive SAP system utilisation.
• Collaborate across production sites to ensure fulfilment of interplant requirements.
• Drive schedule attainment and communicate any deviations, challenges, or abnormalities in schedule to external stakeholders including Procurement, Logistics, Production, Regional Supply Chain Manager, and Customer Service.
• Collaborate and initiate communications globally with customer service, production, warehouse, procurement and logistics to align on forecast and order quantities to ensure a seamless flow of supply.
• Assist in development of logistics requirements forecast in collaboration with Logistics.
• Analyze key metrics including:
  On time to promise, On time to request, schedule attainment, and inventory and facilitate/drive continuous improvement to address root causes.
• Identify, communicate and escape variance from plan, as well as anticipate potential issues, develop sound recovery plans, ensure execution of plans, & communicate status to all relevant parties.
• Model “what-if” scenarios and propose optimised solutions based on variable supply/demand conditions.
• Assist with inventory adjustment analysis including storage location proposals.
• Execute the business plan inventory targets. Refresh the safety stock, target stock and cycle stock calculations a minimum of twice a year.
• Maintain SAP master data/MRP data integrity.
• Facilitate the maintenance of accurate inventory. Coordinate and participate in inventory cycle counting and annual physical inventory according to objectives and communicate results.
• Review slow-moving and blocked inventory and…