Master Scheduler

Description

The Master Scheduler is responsible for developing, maintaining, and controlling A1J Technologies' master production schedule to ensure manufacturing activities are aligned with customer delivery commitments, available machine and labor capacity, material availability, and operational priorities.

• Develop, maintain, and communicate an integrated master production schedule based on customer demand, contractual delivery commitments, manufacturing capacity, and production readiness.
• Translate customer orders, backlog, and approved delivery priorities into executable manufacturing schedules.
• Establish and maintain production schedules by job, operation, work center, and required completion date.
• Define scheduling priorities and planned job release dates in coordination with Operations and Manufacturing leadership.
• Establish a controlled scheduling process to manage customer expedites, priority changes, schedule revisions, and production interruptions.
• Maintain visibility of scheduled versus actual manufacturing progress and identify deviations requiring corrective action.
• Establish scheduling horizons, including near-term execution schedules and longer-term capacity and backlog projections.
• Coordinate approved schedule changes across affected departments to maintain alignment and minimize unnecessary production disruptions.
• Ensure manufacturing priorities are communicated clearly and consistently to Planning, Production, Engineering, Supply Chain, and Quality.

• Develop and maintain capacity planning models that evaluate available machine hours, labor hours, shift schedules, and manufacturing work-center capabilities.
• Evaluate production demand against available capacity to identify overloaded departments, constrained resources, and manufacturing bottlenecks.
• Incorporate equipment availability, planned downtime, labor availability, employee qualifications, and applicable operating efficiencies into capacity assessments.
• Coordinate with Manufacturing leadership to evaluate capacity limitations and available recovery options.
• Identify opportunities to balance manufacturing workloads across appropriate equipment, departments, and shifts.
• Evaluate the impact of overtime, additional shifts, alternate work centers, subcontracting, and other approved capacity adjustments.
• Develop short-term and longer-term capacity forecasts to support staffing, equipment utilization, and operational planning.
• Provide Operations leadership with timely visibility into capacity utilization, constrained resources, and anticipated production shortfalls.
• Support development and validation of manufacturing standards necessary for more accurate capacity planning.

• Analyze customer backlog, past-due orders, and upcoming delivery commitments against demonstrated manufacturing capacity.
• Identify periods where customer demand exceeds available production capability and quantify the resulting capacity shortfall.
• Develop realistic production and delivery recovery scenarios in coordination with Manufacturing, Engineering, Supply Chain, Quality, and Sales.
• Prioritize work based on approved business priorities, contractual requirements, customer commitments, manufacturing readiness, and available capacity.
• Identify jobs at risk of missing committed delivery dates and communicate risks before they become past due.
• Support Sales and Program Management with capacity-based delivery projections and proposed recovery schedules.
• Evaluate the effects of customer expedites, schedule changes, and new orders on existing production commitments.
• Recommend realistic completion dates supported by documented manufacturing assumptions and capacity constraints.
• Maintain accurate visibility of past-due backlog, current-month demand, and future production loading.
• Ensure proposed customer promise-date changes follow established commercial approval and communication processes.

• Coordinate with Engineering, CNC Programming, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, and Quality to verify jobs are ready before their planned production start dates.
• Establish and maintain manufacturing readiness criteria covering material availability, approved routings, CNC programs, tooling, fixtures, required documentation, and inspection requirements.
• Identify jobs with incomplete engineering packages, missing materials, unavailable tooling, or unresolved technical requirements.
• Prevent unready jobs from displacing executable production work without an approved recovery or exception plan.
• Coordinate planned release dates with Engineering and Programming completion schedules.
• Account for outside processing, inspection requirements, and other manufacturing dependencies when establishing production schedules.
• Identify potential material or technical constraints early enough for corrective action.
• Support new product introduction, first-article requirements, and engineering changes through appropriate scheduling allowances.

• Maintain accurate production scheduling information within ERP and applicable approved planning systems.
• Monitor job status, operation progress, routing information, promised dates, and manufacturing priorities.
• Work with Manufacturing leadership to improve the accuracy and timeliness of shop-floor job-on/job-off transactions.
• Establish procedures to reconcile ERP information with actual manufacturing status when system data is incomplete or inaccurate.
• Identify and escalate missing or unreliable routing hours, work-center assignments, job status, and scheduling parameters.
• Collaborate with Engineering and Manufacturing to validate setup hours, cycle times, and actual manufacturing performance.
• Develop practical interim planning methods when reliable manufacturing standards or ERP data are not yet available.
• Support improvements to scheduling dashboards, capacity reports, production control tools, and automated data reporting.
• Maintain one controlled source of scheduling information and minimize conflicting schedules or undocumented priority changes.

• Lead or support structured production scheduling and priority review meetings.
• Provide Manufacturing leadership with clear near-term production priorities, job sequencing requirements, and schedule risks.
• Monitor progress against the approved production schedule and identify operations that are falling behind.
• Coordinate recovery actions for machine downtime, labor shortages, material delays, inspection bottlenecks, and outside-processing delays.
• Establish exception-based reporting that highlights critical jobs requiring management intervention.
• Coordinate with Manufacturing Supervisors and Managers to validate actual production progress and expected operation completion dates.
• Evaluate schedule impacts resulting from scrap, rework, engineering changes, or unexpected process interruptions.
• Maintain schedule stability while allowing controlled adjustments for legitimate business and production requirements.
• Escalate unresolved capacity or scheduling conflicts to Operations leadership.

• Partner with Sales and Program Management to evaluate customer delivery requirements and schedule risks.
• Coordinate with Manufacturing to understand equipment availability, labor constraints, and actual production progress.
• Work with Engineering and CNC Programming to align manufacturing readiness with scheduled production start dates.
• Collaborate with Supply Chain to identify material shortages, purchasing lead times, and outside-processing constraints.
• Coordinate with Quality to incorporate first-piece inspections, final inspections, FAI activities, and inspection capacity into production plans.
• Support Operations leadership in establishing production priorities and resolving competing customer requirements.
• Provide accurate and timely scheduling information for executive reviews, customer recovery plans, and operational decision-making.
• Communicate schedule changes, risks, assumptions, and recovery actions clearly to affected stakeholders.

• Develop and implement standardized production scheduling procedures, reporting practices, and planning controls.
• Establish consistent methods for evaluating machine and labor capacity, manufacturing lead times, and schedule feasibility.
• Improve manufacturing schedule accuracy through analysis of actual-versus-planned production performance.
• Identify recurring causes of missed schedules and recommend sustainable corrective actions.
• Support improvements to routing accuracy, work-center assignments, manufacturing standards, and ERP data quality.
• Develop capacity and backlog visibility tools to support proactive decision-making.
• Reduce excessive work in process, unnecessary priority changes, and avoidable manufacturing interruptions.
• Support Lean Manufacturing, production flow improvement, and continuous improvement initiatives.

• Customer Production Schedule Attainment - Percentage of scheduled jobs or operations completed within the approved scheduling period.
• Schedule Adherence - Percentage of manufacturing activities executed according to the approved schedule.
• Capacity Loading Accuracy - Accuracy of projected machine and labor loading compared with validated actual capacity.
• Backlog Recovery Performance - Reduction in overdue jobs and execution of approved backlog recovery plans.
• Delivery Risk Identification - Percentage of at-risk jobs identified and escalated before scheduled delivery failure.
• Manufacturing Readiness - Percentage of scheduled jobs meeting readiness requirements before planned production start.
• Schedule Stability - Frequency and impact of changes to the approved production schedule.
• ERP Scheduling Data Accuracy - Accuracy of job status, work-center assignments, operation progress, and scheduling information.
• Bottleneck Visibility - Timeliness and accuracy of identifying overloaded work centers and resource constraints.
• Planned vs. Actual Manufacturing Hours - Variance between scheduled and actual manufacturing hours.
• WIP Control - Aging and volume of work in process relative to approved production plans.
• On-Time Delivery Support - Customer delivery performance and scheduling-related causes of missed commitments. 

• Primarily office-based with frequent interaction with Manufacturing, Planning, Engineering, Supply Chain, and Quality.
• Regular presence on the manufacturing floor to validate production status, work-center loading, and capacity constraints.
• Requires frequent participation in production planning and operational review meetings.
• Requires extended periods of computer-based scheduling, reporting, and analytical work.
• Schedule flexibility may be required to support production priorities and coordination between manufacturing shifts.

• Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain Management, Operations Management, Industrial Engineering, Manufacturing, or a related discipline; equivalent relevant manufacturing experience may be considered.
• Minimum of 5 years of progressive production planning, master scheduling, or manufacturing scheduling experience.
• Demonstrated experience developing and maintaining production schedules in a high-mix manufacturing environment.
• Strong understanding of machine capacity, labor capacity, work-center loading, manufacturing routings, and production lead times.
• Experience with ERP/MRP systems, work-order management, and production scheduling transactions.
• Demonstrated ability to identify manufacturing bottlenecks, capacity constraints, and delivery risks.
• Strong understanding of material availability, engineering readiness, outside processing, and inspection dependencies.
• Advanced Microsoft Excel proficiency, including data analysis, scheduling models, and reporting.
• Ability to analyze complex manufacturing information and develop realistic, executable production plans.
• Strong organizational, analytical, problem-solving, and cross-functional communication skills.
• Ability to manage competing priorities and communicate scheduling constraints to Manufacturing and Executive Leadership.
• Demonstrated ability to maintain scheduling discipline while responding to changing customer and production requirements.

• Experience in aerospace, defense, precision CNC machining, or high-mix, low-volume manufacturing.
• Experience with finite-capacity scheduling, machine loading, labor capacity analysis, and constraint management.
• Familiarity with JobBoss ERP or comparable manufacturing systems.
• Experience developing production scheduling systems in environments with incomplete manufacturing standards or unreliable ERP information.
• Experience managing large manufacturing backlogs and developing capacity-based delivery recovery plans.
• Familiarity with CNC milling, turning, EDM, grinding, lapping, and related precision manufacturing processes.
• Experience coordinating manufacturing schedules involving outside processing, complex inspection requirements, and first-article activities.
• APICS CPIM or equivalent certification.
• Experience implementing scheduling dashboards, production control systems, and operational performance reporting.
• Demonstrated success improving on-time delivery, schedule attainment, manufacturing throughput, and WIP control.
• Experience supporting Lean Manufacturing, continuous improvement, and production flow optimization.