Production Planner

Chipton-Ross, Inc.; Buena Park (CA); On-site; USD 70,000 - 95,000; Full time

Job summary

Chipton-Ross, Inc. in Buena Park, CA, seeks a Production Planner II to craft and maintain a feasible production plan by assessing demand, capacity, and material availability.

The role requires collaboration with Supply Chain, Operations, Engineering, and Quality to ensure readiness of materials and capacity, and to hand off clear priorities to expediting and production teams. The successful candidate will leverage ERP/MRP knowledge and advanced Excel skills to generate actionable release signals

Qualifications

• Three or more years in production planning or related roles.
• Experience with ERP/MRP systems and parameter tuning.
• Advanced Excel with multi-tab models and complex formulas.
• Ability to interpret demand, inventory, and capacity data.
• Strong communication and on-site collaboration skills.

Responsibilities

• Review and act on MRP outputs to keep plans accurate.
• Release and sequence work orders balancing various constraints.
• Manage live WIP planning tool and publish priorities.
• Translate forecasts and releases into monthly/weekly production plans.
• Tune ERP/MRP signals for accurate release signals.
• Analyze ERP data to surface at-risk orders and constraints.
• Maintain monthly ship plan and monitor gaps to stock.
• Develop build-ahead strategies to meet ship dates without overload.
• Analyze capacity by work center to identify needs.
• Work with Supply Chain, Ops, Engineering, Quality, and Customer Service to align readiness.
• Support new product introductions and program transfers with demand modeling.

Skills

MRP knowledge

Advanced Excel

Analytical thinking

Attention to detail

Onsite collaboration

Education

High school diploma or GED

APICS CPIM/CSCP certification

Tools

Infor SyteLine

CloudSuite Industrial

Power BI

SQL

Job description

Chipton-Ross is seeking a Production Planner II for a contract opportunity in Buena Park, CA.

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS (REQUIRED SKILLS/EXPERIENCE)

• Three or more years of production planning, materials planning, demand planning, or production control experience in a manufacturing environment.
• Strong working knowledge of ERP or MRP systems - MRP logic, planning parameters, order policies, routings, bills of material, and inventory transactions - and the ability to tune those parameters to improve signal quality.
• Advanced Microsoft Excel skills - comfortable building and maintaining multi-tab models with complex formulas (lookups, conditional aggregation, dynamic arrays), pivot tables, and data connections. Able to own and extend a live reporting workbook, not just read one.
• Strong analytical and quantitative ability: can interpret demand, inventory, and capacity data, find the signal in noisy data, and turn it into a clear, defensible plan and priority order.
• Ability to interpret customer demand, production status, and technical documentation and convert them into an executable release and priority plan.
• Strong attention to detail and data discipline, sound judgment with incomplete information, and clear written and verbal communication.
• Ability to work onsite and collaborate with office and production teams, including time on the floor to validate that the plan reflects reality.

POSITION RESPONSIBILITIES

• Own the review of MRP output - planned orders, action and exception messages, and demand and supply changes - and act on it to keep the plan current and accurate.
• Release and sequence work orders based on net demand (backlog less finished goods and work in process), balancing setup efficiency, lot sizing, aging inventory, outside processing lead times, and competing customer priorities.
• Work the live WIP planning tool daily to set and rank shop priorities by work center, and publish a clear, current priority order for the production and expediting teams to execute to.
• Interpret customer demand - forecasts, purchase orders, releases, and program requirements - and translate it into a structured monthly and weekly production plan by part and work center.
• Maintain and tune the demand and supply signals in the ERP or MRP system - order policies, lot sizes, safety stock, lead times, and planning time fences - so the system generates accurate, actionable release signals.
• Analyze raw ERP and production data - backlog, inventory, work in process, routings, and labor - to surface at-risk orders, coverage gaps, and constraints; build and maintain the spreadsheet models and reports that turn that data into daily priorities and status.
• Maintain the committed monthly ship plan as the plan of record; monitor schedule attainment, past-due backlog, WIP, and coverage, and quantify the gap between committed demand and what is covered by stock and in-process work.
• Develop and execute a build-ahead strategy: pull demand forward into stock in a controlled, capacity-aware way so the plant progressively works ahead of ship dates, without overloading constraint operations.
• Analyze capacity against demand by work center - casting, machining, finishing, inspection, and assembly - to identify constraints and headcount or equipment needs before they affect delivery.
• Partner with Supply Chain, Operations, Engineering, Quality, and Customer Service to align material, tooling, and capacity readiness, and to hand off clear priorities and recovery plans to the expediting and production functions.
• Support new product introductions, program transfers, and production ramp-ups - including the Hyatt Die Cast transfer and Boeing program work - by modeling demand, capacity, and staffing requirements ahead of the ramp.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS (DESIRED SKILLS/EXPERIENCE)

• A degree in supply chain, operations, industrial engineering, business, or a related discipline is a plus but not required; relevant planning experience is what matters most.
• Planning experience in aerospace, defense, precision machining, die casting, or another regulated manufacturing environment.
• Experience with demand planning, finite or constraint-based capacity scheduling, and multi-operation manufacturing routings.
• Experience with Infor SyteLine or CloudSuite Industrial, and with reporting or query tools (CyberQuery, Power BI, SQL, Power Query, or similar).
• Experience building capacity or headcount models and supporting program transfers or production ramp-ups.
• APICS CPIM, CSCP, or comparable supply chain certification.

REQUIRED EDUCATION

Accredited HSD/GED

WORK HOURS

Full-Time