NPI Planner (Can be based in Galway or Shannon)

Job Summary

NPI planner will be assigned critical NPI projects and is responsible for NPI material planning, scheduling, and tracking from development through production hand-off.

Principal Duties and Responsibilities

• In collaboration with cross-functional NPI team, ensure all pre-requisites are in place to support NPI program roll out.
• Key deliverables are to meet customer critical delivery commitments and program milestones.
• Plan, schedule, coordinate and monitor multiple NPI projects.
• Working from engineering plans and production specifications, establish preliminary production schedules.
• Using Supply Chain Planning & Sourcing Capability tools along with lead time inputs, define inbound due dates from vendors (ZB and third party).
• Considering critical path, propose risk mitigation/contingency strategies for supply chain delays and shortages.
• Drive and track resolution of material issues, facilitating conflict resolution and initiating action to ensure next steps are identified and agreed to.
• Setup, monitor and maintain the system to capture and track material plans and status.
• Communicate status through meetings, reports and dashboards.
• Manage and track engineering material inventory, resolving discrepancies as needed.
• Spear-head inventory control to ensure optimal usage of supply. Perform analysis to proactively identify and minimize potential excess supply during the NPI production phase.
• Develop and implement capability review for all new products.
• Work with local & global sourcing to ensure capacity exists across the supply chain to support NPI activity into the future.
• Collate RA inputs to develop capacity plans through launch including new territory (country) product registrations.
• Collaborate with Central Planning & Inventory Control to understand global customer forecast & safety stock requirements.
• Ensure all system planning data complies with global data integrity rules prior to production handover.
• Participate and provide input into KPI / Dashboarding activities for the new product.
• Drives continuous improvement of NPI and Bill-of-Materials systems & models. Enhance existing tools or develop new tools that promotes productivity and cost reduction.

Expected Areas of Competence (i.e. KSAs)

• Knowledge of supply chain planning and management
• Strong communication skills
• Ability to work to deadlines and produce outputs on a regular, timely basis
• Understanding of end-to-end supply chain interactions, activities, and underlying interdependencies
• Ability to use analytical tools to issue, support, and execute decisions
• Analytical skills and ability to extract meaning information from various sources of data
• Ability to communicate effectively both upwards and across the organization
• Act on own initiative, strong IT, administrative, planning, organization and communication skills.
• Ability to combine rigid control with additional flexibility in a new product launch
• Strong team player and demonstrated continuous improvement success.

Education/Experience Requirements

• 3rd Level Diploma Degree in Business/Supply Chain/Engineering ideally, APICS/CPIM preferred.
• 2+ years’ progressive work experience and responsibility within high-volume regulated manufacturing environment preferably medical devices.
• Strong MRP understanding and experience with one or more ERP integrated systems (e.g. SAP, JD Edwards,).
• Planning experience preferred
• In-depth knowledge of order management, planning, scheduling, purchasing and inventory control.
• Proficient with using Microsoft Office software, in particular Excel and PowerPoint.