Production Planning Manager

Overview

The Production Planning Manager (PPM) is accountable for ensuring that all manufacturing master data required for planning and scheduling — including materials, BOMs, routings, production versions, and capacity data — is accurate, complete, and maintained in SAP S/4

HANA to support reliable planning and execution.

Location:

Wolverhampton

• Act as the key interface between Engineering, Manufacturing, and Planning to ensure engineering outputs (drawings, parts lists, design changes) are correctly translated into structured, controlled manufacturing data.
• Maintain and oversee creation, validation, and maintenance of manufacturing master data (materials, BOMs, routings, production versions) within SAP S/4
  
  HANA to ensure planning accuracy and full data integrity.
• Ensure all master data reflects current design intent, approved engineering changes (ECN/ECR), and manufacturing capability.
• Maintain strong governance of data standards, naming conventions, and documentation to support nuclear manufacturing traceability requirements.
• Continuously review and condition master data to reflect lifecycle updates, process improvements, and lessons learned.
• Lead the development of the master schedule, obtain agreement with stakeholders, and drive production output; use this as input for the MRP process to launch planned manufacturing work orders and purchase order requests.
• Monitor progress against agreed schedules, measure adherence to the plan, and update the plan based on stakeholder feedback; ensure delivery to agreed customer commitments and dates.
• Provide operational leadership of the planning engineers, stores team, and estimating engineers; oversee creation and issue of work orders (route cards) and monitor production performance against the plan.
• Act as the primary liaison between Engineering and Manufacturing for interpreting design outputs and converting them into accurate manufacturing data; validate drawings, parts lists, and design changes for SAP and production execution.
• Support NCR investigations where data or routing errors contribute to non-conformance, using structured problem‑solving methods (5 Whys, DMAIC, RCA).
• Lead SAP S/4
  
  HANA utilisation for planning, scheduling, master data management, and MRP execution; identify opportunities to enhance planning and production control through improved SAP functionality.
• Provide coaching and first-line support to planners, manufacturing engineers, and shop floor users on SAP processes and best practices.
• Ensure capacity planning data, lead times, and work centre information are accurate and continuously maintained; validate MRP outputs and recommendations to avoid data-driven planning errors.

• Extensive experience with SAP S/4
  
  HANA in a manufacturing environment, including Material Master, PP, Production Execution, and Manufacturing Data Management.
• Strong competence in data structuring, cleansing, validation, and lifecycle control.
• Experience with engineering change management and its impact on manufacturing data.
• Ability to interpret engineering drawings, parts lists, and technical documentation to create accurate manufacturing data.
• High level of accuracy and attention to detail when managing data that drives planning and scheduling.
• Understanding of data governance frameworks and the importance of controlled, traceable master data in a regulated environment.