Lead Production Scheduler

Nexthermal; Battle Creek (MI); On-site; USD 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

Nexthermal in Battle Creek, MI seeks a Production Scheduler to develop and execute a comprehensive production planning strategy that balances demand, capacity, materials, and workforce resources.

You will partner with Production, Supply Chain, Engineering, Customer Service, and Sales to establish finite-capacity scheduling, level workloads, and drive data-driven execution. The role also includes mentoring planners and leading continuous improvement initiatives across the organization.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in supply chain management or related field.
• 5+ years of production planning, scheduling, or supply chain experience in manufacturing.
• Experience implementing ERP or APS systems.
• Strong understanding of MRP/CRP concepts and ERP tooling.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the business process owner for production planning and scheduling within the ERP system.
• Develop finite-capacity production schedules considering labor, equipment, tooling and materials.
• Establish methodologies aligning demand with available manufacturing resources.
• Analyze work center loading and capacity to identify bottlenecks and improve throughput.
• Lead operations planning to ensure realistic commitments to customers.
• Drive workload leveling and resource balancing across departments.
• Develop planning metrics and dashboards for capacity, throughput, and on-time delivery.
• Create long- and short-term production plans based on forecast demand and capacity.
• Lead ERP implementation and optimization for planning and scheduling.
• Partner with ERP project teams to design, test, and deploy planning functionality.
• Develop workflows, scheduling rules, capacity models, and planning parameters.
• Ensure routing, work center, labor standards, and capacity data are maintained.
• Train users and champion adoption of planning best practices.
• Drive improvements in schedule accuracy and labor utilization.
• Mentor production supervisors, planners, and schedulers.
• Promote data-driven decision-making and schedule accountability.

Skills

Production planning

Scheduling

Capacity planning

Lean manufacturing

Theory of Constraints

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain Management or related field

Tools

ERP systems

APS systems

MRP/CRP concepts

Job description

The Production Scheduler is responsible for developing and executing a comprehensive production planning strategy that balances customer demand, manufacturing capacity, materials availability, and workforce resources. This role serves as the organization's subject matter expert for production planning and scheduling processes. This position partners with Production, Supply Chain, Engineering, Customer Service, and Sales to establish finite-capacity scheduling processes, workload balancing across work centers, and data-driven production execution practices. The role will mentor planners, supervisors, and production teams while providing leadership in continuous improvement initiatives.

responsibilities

• Serve as the business process owner for production planning and scheduling functions within the ERP system.
• Develop and maintain finite-capacity production schedules that consider labor, equipment, tooling, and material constraints.
• Establish production planning methodologies that align demand with available manufacturing resources.
• Analyze work center loading and capacity utilization to identify bottlenecks and improve throughput.
• Lead Operations Planning and production planning activities to ensure realistic commitments to customers.
• Drive workload leveling and resource balancing across manufacturing departments.
• Develop planning metrics and dashboards to measure capacity utilization, throughput, schedule adherence, and on-time delivery performance.
• Create long-term and short-term production plans based on forecast demand and operational capacity.
• Lead implementation and optimization of ERP planning and scheduling capabilities.
• Partner with ERP project teams to design, test, and deploy production planning functionality.
• Develop system workflows, scheduling rules, capacity models, and planning parameters.
• Ensure routing, work center, labor standards, and capacity data are maintained accurately to support planning processes.
• Train users and champion adoption of planning and scheduling best practices throughout the organization.
• Drive improvements in schedule accuracy, inventory turns, throughput, lead times, and labor utilization.
• Lead root cause analysis of schedule disruptions and capacity constraints.
• Implement Lean Manufacturing, Theory of Constraints, and planning optimization techniques.
• Recommend process, technology, and organizational improvements that increase manufacturing performance.
• Mentor production supervisors, planners, and schedulers in planning concepts and scheduling discipline.
• Develop internal planning competencies and standard operating procedures.
• Provide coaching on capacity planning, bottleneck management, workload balancing, and ERP utilization.
• Promote a culture of data-driven decision-making and schedule accountability across manufacturing.
• Bachelor’s degree in supply chain management, Operations Management, Industrial Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, or related field.
• 5+ years of production planning, scheduling, operations planning, or supply chain experience in a manufacturing environment.
• Demonstrated experience implementing ERP or Advanced Planning & Scheduling (APS) systems.
• Proven success developing finite-capacity scheduling processes.
• Strong understanding of MRP, CRP (Capacity Requirements Planning, Master Scheduling, and Manufacturing Execution concepts.
• Experience using ERP tools to optimize production scheduling and resource utilization.
• Experience leading organizational change and cross-functional process improvements.