Material Planner: Production Readiness & Shortages

PROENERGY; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 60,000 - 85,000; Full time

Job summary

PROENERGY is seeking a Material Planner to own material readiness visibility across assigned scope and surface shortages before they impact the schedule. You will coordinate with planners, warehouse, and procurement to maintain a single material picture and prioritize readiness.

You will identify constraints early, manage shortages, and push for timely receipts while interfacing with procurement, ERP systems, and production planning.

Qualifications

• High school diploma or GED required.
• Associate’s or Bachelor’s degree preferred.
• 2+ years in material planning, material coordination, production planning support, or inventory control in a manufacturing environment.
• Strong Excel proficiency; comfort working from bills of material, shop travelers, and pick lists.

Responsibilities

• Own material readiness status for assigned scope: monitor availability and readiness by module, engine, or project, and maintain a published Ready / At Risk / Short status that planners, operations, and leadership trust as the single material truth.
• Identify constraints before they bite: review material requirements against the production schedule, surface shortages, late deliveries, and missing parts early, and proactively flag upcoming constraints.
• Maintain the shortage management process: create and maintain shortage lists with expected receipts, owners, and actions; provide daily readiness updates; and drive each item to closure through the defined escalation process — not informal expediting.
• Coordinate readiness — information only: direct priorities to warehouse, kitting, and material coordinators so required materials are picked, staged, and available when needed; verify materials are properly identified and associated with the correct production order.
• Chase supply status upstream: work with procurement and suppliers for status on outstanding or delayed material, and feed confirmed dates back into the readiness picture and the planners’ schedule risk view.
• Audit planning parameters on a quarterly cadence: review lead times, order quantities, and safety-stock signals for assigned scope against actual supplier and consumption performance, in coordination with procurement and inventory control — submitting corrections through data governance so the planning data the readiness picture depends on stays true.
• Support recovery and pull-ahead: during schedule recovery, identify material constraints and opportunities to pull work ahead based on what is actually ready, executing material priorities set by the production planner.
• Report and participate on cadence: maintain accurate records of status, shortages, receipts, and actions; represent material readiness in daily production planning meetings with risks and recovery actions.
• Shrink the firefighting: capture recurring shortage causes and feed them to the production planning manager and continuous improvement for prevention — the goal is fewer shortages to chase, quarter over quarter.
• Support the D365 / ERP implementation, validating material planning functionality during testing and cutover, including full physical and system reconciliation before go-live.

Skills

Excel

BOM knowledge

Inventory control

Data analysis

ERP systems

Communication

English fluency

Attention to detail

Education

High school diploma or GED

Associate’s or Bachelor’s degree preferred

Tools

Microsoft Dynamics 365

SAP

Oracle

Job description

PROENERGY is seeking a Material Planner to own material readiness visibility across assigned scope and surface shortages before they impact the schedule. You will coordinate with planners, warehouse, and procurement to maintain a single material picture and prioritize readiness.

You will identify constraints early, manage shortages, and push for timely receipts while interfacing with procurement, ERP systems, and production planning.