Production Planner

Refresco Group; Litchurch; On-site; GBP 32,000 - 43,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual bonus

Annual pay review

Early finish on a Friday

28 days annual leave + bank holidays

Life assurance

Employee referral scheme

GroceryAid

Cheers benefits

Free onsite parking

Job summary

Refresco is seeking a Production Planner to join our Supply Chain team in the UK. The role focuses on developing robust production plans, balancing customer service, and optimising factory capacity.

You will translate forecasts into schedules, manage risk, and drive improvements across planning processes. This permanent role offers progression and a collaborative working environment with our UK team.

Qualifications

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent planning and organisational abilities.
• Experience with ERP/MRP systems (e.g. SAP) and strong numerical skills would be advantageous.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain short, medium, and long-term production and capacity plans, ensuring customer demand is met while optimising factory utilisation and service levels.
• Translate sales forecasts into achievable production schedules, planning stock builds around maintenance shutdowns, seasonal demand, and promotional activities.
• Proactively identify and mitigate supply, capacity, material, labour, and service risks through scenario planning, trend analysis, and contingency planning.
• Investigate stock shortages, service issues, and planning variances, implementing corrective actions with cross-functional teams.
• Drive continuous improvement across planning processes, systems, and reporting, supporting automation opportunities and inventory optimisation.
• Monitor and analyse key planning KPIs, providing insight-based recommendations to improve service levels and capacity utilisation.

Skills

Analytical thinking

Planning

Stakeholder management

Data analysis

Tools

SAP ERP

Excel

Job description

An exciting opportunity has arisen within Refresco for a Production Planner to join our Supply Chain team. This role is responsible for developing effective production plans, optimising manufacturing capacity, and proactively identifying and resolving potential supply chain risks to ensure excellent customer service and operational efficiency.

Production Planner Kegworth Monday - Thursday 8:30am - 5pm, Friday 8:30am - 4pm Permanent

Reward & Benefits

• Annual bonus
• Annual pay review
• Early finish on a Friday
• 28 days annual leave + bank holidays
• Purchase up to an additional 3 days holidays
• Life assurance
• Employee referral scheme - earn a bonus for referring your friends or family
• GroceryAid - a support service offering financial, legal, wellbeing and practical support, advice and counselling
• Cheers - access to our award winning benefits platform offering discounts, free perks, and well-being tools for all employees
• Free onsite parking, and discounted products

About the Role

Reporting to the Planning Manager, the Production Planner is responsible for ensuring the optimal balance between customer service, production efficiency, inventory levels, and manufacturing capacity. The role focuses on developing robust production plans that maximise factory utilisation while minimising costs and supply risks. A key aspect of this role is proactive problem solving-anticipating potential constraints before they impact customer service, identifying risks within the supply chain and manufacturing process, and implementing preventative actions to maintain operational performance.

• Develop and maintain short, medium, and long-term production and capacity plans, ensuring customer demand is met while optimising factory utilisation and service levels.
• Translate sales forecasts into achievable production schedules, planning stock builds around maintenance shutdowns, seasonal demand, and promotional activities.
• Proactively identify and mitigate supply, capacity, material, labour, and service risks through scenario planning, trend analysis, and effective contingency planning.
• Investigate stock shortages, service issues, and planning variances, implementing corrective actions and collaborating with cross-functional teams to resolve operational challenges.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives across planning processes, systems, and reporting, supporting automation opportunities and inventory optimisation to improve efficiency and reduce working capital.
• Monitor and analyse key planning KPIs, ensuring data accuracy and providing insight-based recommendations to improve service levels, plan adherence, capacity utilisation, and overall business performance.

About You

Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to identify and implement effective solutions. Excellent planning and organisational skills, with an understanding of production planning and S&OP processes. Ability to analyse data, identify trends, and make informed decisions to support operational performance. Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, building effective relationships across functions. Proactive and resilient, with the ability to manage risks and deliver successful outcomes. Experience with ERP/MRP systems (e.g. SAP) and strong numerical skills would be advantageous. Ultimately, we encourage everyone to role model our core values of agility, responsibility, passion, excellence, and entrepreneurship as we believe these are what has made Refresco successful so far.

Find out more about the Refresco Values here:

About Refresco

Refresco is the global independent beverage solutions provider for Global, National and Emerging brands, and retailers with production in Europe, North America, and Australia. Refresco offers an extensive range of product and packaging combinations from juices to carbonated soft drinks and mineral waters in carton, PET, Aseptic PET, cans, and glass. Refresco continuously searches for new and alternative ways to improve the quality of its products and packaging combinations in line with consumer and customer demand, environmental responsibilities, and market demand Refresco is headquartered in Rotterdam, the Netherlands and has more than 13,500 employees. www.refresco.com . Our drinks on every table. That's the Refresco vision. We're a global business and currently produce 12 billion litres of soft drinks from 64 manufacturing plants in 12 countries and we're only just getting started. We're the proud owners of six drinks manufacturing sites within the UK. Our UK business provides a great place to work for over 1,800 employees, who produce private label soft drinks and fruit juices for all the leading retailers. Whether it's packed in cartons, bottles or cans, we ensure that our products are made to the highest quality standards. Our products get where they need to be when they need to get there to meet the needs of our high-profile customers.

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