Senior Production Planner

From a small family business to a multi-billion-dollar global company, Sonoco has been changing the face of products and packaging since 1899 — all while keeping the heart of “People Build Businesses” alive.

Our talented people are at the core of our growth, constantly reinventing the Sonoco wheel with brilliant solutions every year. Today we are a world leader in global packaging solutions with diversified operations in over 34 countries. We're extremely proud of our portfolio of brands, our achievements in sustainability and industrialization and the groundbreaking work accomplished by our people. 

Reporting directly to the Plant Manager, the production planner takes direction from all leadership functions, operations, admin, etc. The Production Planner schedules manufacturing equipment and raw materials to efficiently meet customer demand. The position is responsible for scheduling jobs to minimize downtime, effectively utilizing equipment and to ensuring on-time delivery. This position has indirect contact with customers to ensure the plant is providing excellent customer service and support.

Sonoco prides itself on its world class safety performance. All team members are expected to be actively involved in the safety process, including responsibility for their own personal safety and participation in team & process improvement related activities.

• →Provides administration and supervision of plant production control and planning as directed.
• →Supervises and directs the warehouse/planning and shipping/receiving functions as directed.
• →Supervises and directs the purchasing and storeroom function as directed.
• →Oversees planning and production scheduling of cans, ends, and plates for entire plant.
• →Work with Procurement & Supply Chain on the purchasing of raw material, dunnage, coatings and packaging supplies.
• →Scheduling. develops metal processing production schedules to meet internal production & external sales requirements while minimizing changeovers, downtime, maintaining the appropriate inventory levels. This includes shipments of scrap and finished goods.
• →Provides daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly production, spoilage, sales, and production schedule data.
• →Provides necessary records for raw material and finished goods inventory reporting systems, maintains, manages, reviews, and advises action on inventory reconciliation and resolution of problems. Coordinates and reviews semi-annual inventory.
• →Supervises the receipt, storage, and control of raw material for use in production, initiates substitution requests for raw material as needed, and maintains and reviews rough cut capacity planning.
• →May arrange for the ordering and shipment of metal and supplies with group purchasing.
• →Forecasts production, sales, and metal requirements for plant and group office use.
• →Maintains and directs routine material/production review meetings with plant production management personnel.
• →Schedules raw materials for use in production and coordinates with group offices the shipment and in-plant inventories of metal.
• →Assists the group sales function in budget and forecast comparisons.
• →Assists the group sales function in customer inquiries and activities. Maintains and seeks resolution of customer complaints.
• →Coordinates customer releases and orders with outside warehousing and other plants within the group.
• →Assists in procuring transportation for customer and warehouse movement of finished products.
• →May assist and advise the plant purchasing function in implementation of central stores reporting system and in seeking competitive pricing of goods and services.
• →Reviews and orders ODM’s needed for production.
• →Assists Customer Service Reps (CSR) with customer forecasts.
• →Performs CSR duties: May handle all aspects of SMP Processing Customer Service (CSR) responsibilities.

• Complexity of scheduling 24/7 operation with multiple and complex delivery points.
• Vendor quality/supply issues impacting plans & the ability to navigate difficult supply chains for remediation.

This position is located at our Milwaukee, Wisconsin facility.

• 4-year degree preferred – 4+ years of experience can substitute.
• Oracle, QAD experience required.
• Communication, Operations, vendors, Computer Literacy (Oracle, Outlook, MS Office),
• Problem Solving, Conflict Resolution, Strategic Thinking, Attention to Detail and Flexibility.