Material Planning Associate Manager

Job description

Tesla is seeking a motivated, experienced, and knowledgeable manager to help lead inside the Material Planning organization. The Material Planning Associate Manager will oversee various aspects of the daily planning operation, manage a team, and contribute to the long-term goals of the organization by driving strategic projects. A successful Material Planning Manager is highly analytical, detail-oriented, resourceful, a strong communicator, and able to leverage relationships across the company to accomplish his/her goals. He or she must see the “bigger picture” in order to prioritize amongst competing demands and execute soundly in a high-pressure environment. Balancing the operational and the strategic elements of Planning will be an ongoing imperative. The ideal candidate has experience in a manufacturing environment (preferably working with medium-to-high volume products) or in a complex distribution network (again, preferably working in medium-to-high volume products) and is capable of translating their understanding of cross-functional processes into appropriate supply plans.

Responsibilities

·         Supervise the planning and ordering of time-critical materials to support Tesla’s manufacturing and service organizations, while minimizing freight costs and maintaining optimal inventory levels (avoid both shortages and overages)

·         Act as escalation point for material concerns, lead daily shortage meetings to ensure supply continuity, report on KPIs (inventory days on hand, line interruptions, expedite costs, etc.) and enforce best practices

·         Foster and develop a strong team of material planners and potentially associate managers through selective recruitment, training and coaching. Tasks include proactively planning resources, communicating job expectations, providing performance feedback and managing the team in line with Tesla’s policies

·         Collaborate with other departments, including logistics, purchasing, engineering, manufacturing, service, and demand planning to support quarterly operational and long-term scaling objectives

·         Identify and communicate potential supply risks and collaborate with purchasing and supplier industrialization teams to resolve structural and commercial issues

·         Identify and lead process improvement initiatives related to execution and planned growth, including but not limited to: procedural updates and communication pathways, improved hand-offs from purchasing to material planning and from material planning to internal customers, inventory optimization scenarios, analytics and KPI build-out, and employee training programs

·         Work with suppliers, purchasing and logistics to establish delivery quantity and frequency for Just-In-Time delivery and line-side Kanban

·         Collaborate with purchasing, engineering, production and NPI to coordinate engineering change order timing for part revisions and new product launches, targeting minimal obsolescence

·         Enforce maintenance of MRP master data parameters to ensure accurate demand signals (i.e. lead times, MOQ’s, lot sizing, safety stock); identify and resolve system and/or BOM inaccuracies to preserve data integrity

·         Participate in and champion MRP system development activities, including specification writing, development, testing, and training

 

Requirements

·         Bachelors or Masters in Supply Chain, Finance, Industrial Engineering or similar discipline. CPIM or APIC training a plus

·         Minimum 6 years experience in manufacturing, distribution, finance, or supply chain management

·         Minimum 3 years experience managing others (preferably other people leaders)

·         Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills in developing, implementing, and assessing key operational and financial metrics. Strong critical thinking and resolution skills in ambiguous situations

·         Strong knowledge of MRP/ERP with a solid understand of discrete manufacturing, bills of material, product lifecycle management, procure to pay processes and supply chain operations

·         Excellent verbal and written communication skills

·         Demonstrated skills in supplier operational and relationship management

·         Ability to multi-task, prioritize and work in an extremely fast-paced environment

·         Passionate and high energy, with the diplomacy and cooperative style necessary to positively influence others, both inside and outside of Tesla

·         Demonstrated resilience and capacity to lead a team through periods of change

·         Knowledge of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software, particularly Enovia Matrix One, a plus