Demand Planner

TR, part of the Trifast plc group; Walsall; On-site; GBP 42,000 - 60,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

25 days holiday + 8 bank holidays

Job summary

TR Fastenings (TR), part of Trifast plc, is seeking an experienced Demand Planner to join the UK Supply Chain at the National Distribution Centre in Walsall. You will lead forecasting, governance, and data-led planning to support purchasing, inventory and customer service.

The role focuses on establishing a strong demand planning capability, using AI tools and collaborating with commercial and operational teams to improve forecast accuracy and supply chain performance.

Qualifications

• 5+ years’ clear demand planning experience with ownership or improvement of a demand planning process.
• Experience in manufacturing, distribution, industrial, or fast-paced supply chain environments.
• Strong understanding of forecasting, seasonality, product lifecycle management and inventory control.

Responsibilities

• Define and embed demand planning processes, governance, reporting and best practice for this new role.
• Lead the demand planning process and communicate assumptions, risks and opportunities to stakeholders.
• Analyse order history, forecasts, seasonality, market trends and product lifecycle information to inform planning.

Skills

Demand planning

Excel

Power BI

Dynamics 365

AI tools

Data analysis

Stakeholder influence

Cross-functional collaboration

Tools

Microsoft Dynamics 365

ERP systems

Power BI

Job description

TR Fastenings (TR) is part of Trifast plc is a leading international specialist in the design, engineering, manufacture, and distribution of high-quality industrial fastenings and Category 'C' components principally to major global assembly industries. It supplies to some 5,000 customers in 75 countries worldwide, serving a range of industries including Automotive, Smart Infrastructure, Medical, General Industrial and Distributors.

We are looking to recruit a Demand Planner on a permanent basis to join our Supply Chain team based at our National Distribution Centre in Walsall (WS2 8DQ).

The Role

We are looking for an experienced, analytical, and commercially aware Demand Planner to join our supply chain team at the National Distribution Centre in Walsall. This is a newly created role and an important opportunity to establish a strong demand planning capability within the business. The business requires someone with clear, proven demand planning experience who can bring forecasting expertise, structure, and best practice to support a more proactive, data-led planning approach.

The successful candidate will help the business operate from a single, trusted view of demand, supporting effective supply planning, purchasing, inventory management, customer service, and operational decision-making.

Key Tasks

• Help define and embed demand planning processes, governance, reporting, and best practice for this new role within the business.
• Lead the demand planning process, ensuring assumptions, risks, opportunities, and recommendations are clearly communicated to stakeholders.
• Analyse customer order history, customer forecasts, call-off order demand, seasonality, market trends, product lifecycle information, and customer & supplier shutdown impacts.
• Use approved AI tools to convert customer forecasts into the required format, ensuring outputs are reviewed and validated before upload to D365.
• Review forecast variance with Sales and key stakeholders, ensuring gaps, risks, and opportunities are understood and reflected in the demand plan. Hand over a clear, agreed demand plan to Material Planning to support purchasing, safety stock, lead time, reorder point, and inventory decisions.
• Use demand and inventory segmentation techniques, such as ABC/XYZ analysis, to prioritise planning focus, improve forecast accuracy, and support appropriate inventory strategies.
• Monitor forecast accuracy, bias, service, stock health, inventory turns, excess stock, and obsolete inventory, identifying root causes and driving continuous improvement.
• Contribute to the S&OP process, presenting insights and actions to protect service, capacity, and stock availability.

The Candidate

You will be a confident and experienced demand planning professional with strong analytical capability, excellent attention to detail, and the ability to turn data into clear insight and practical actions. You will bring hands-on demand planning knowledge and be comfortable working cross-functionally, challenging assumptions constructively, influencing stakeholders, and helping the business build stronger demand planning discipline.

Essential skills and experience

• 5+ years’ clear demand planning experience, with demonstrable experience owning, developing, or significantly improving a demand planning process. General material planning experience alone will not be sufficient for this role.
• Experience in a manufacturing, distribution, industrial, or fast-paced supply chain environment.
• Strong understanding of demand planning principles, including forecasting, seasonality, customer demand, product lifecycle management, and inventory control.
• Advanced Microsoft Excel skills and confidence analysing large and complex datasets.
• Confident using Power BI or similar analytics and reporting tools to create insight, track performance, and support data-led planning decisions.
• Experience using an ERP or planning system, ideally Microsoft Dynamics 365 or similar.
• Strong problem-solving, communication, and stakeholder influencing skills.
• Customer-first mindset with strong commercial awareness and a disciplined approach to data accuracy.
• Experience in using AI tools for demand planning
• Experience with dedicated demand planning, advanced planning, or reporting tools.
• Exposure to structured planning cycles such as S&OP.
• Experience supporting new product introduction, product transitions, or end-of-life planning.

This is an opportunity to make a visible impact across our UK&I business by helping to establish a stronger demand planning capability from the ground up. You will play a key role in improving forecast accuracy, strengthening supply chain performance, and supporting better business decisions, while working closely with commercial and operational teams to shape a more proactive, data-led planning culture.

What we offer

• 25 days holiday + 8 bank holidays. The business does observe a Christmas shutdown period and a maximum of 4 days will be deducted from employees annual leave entitlement.