Strategic Demand Planner | S&OP & AI Forecasting

Ashton North LLC; Northampton (MA); On-site; USD 110,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Ashton North LLC seeks a seasoned Supply Chain Demand Manager to lead forecasting and planning across product lines and regions, aligning Sales, Marketing, Finance, Operations, and Supply Chain for optimal availability and inventory control.

You will drive S&OP/IBP processes, improve forecast accuracy, and translate data into actionable strategic guidance for leadership, ensuring responsiveness to market changes and product introductions.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a related field.
• Minimum of five years of progressive experience in demand planning, forecasting, supply chain planning, production planning, or a related discipline.
• Experience leading or actively contributing to S&OP or IBP processes.
• Proven ability to improve forecast accuracy and convert complex data into actionable business recommendations.
• Experience working within an ERP/MRP environment and using demand-planning or supply-chain planning systems.
• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel and experience with reporting, visualization, or analytical tools.
• Strong understanding of inventory management, safety stock, capacity planning, and supply-and-demand balancing.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, organizational, and decision-making skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to present information and recommendations to senior leadership.
• Ability to collaborate across multiple departments, influence stakeholders, and challenge assumptions constructively.

Responsibilities

• Develop, maintain, and improve demand forecasts across product lines, customers, channels, and regions.
• Lead the demand-planning component of the S&OP/IBP process, ensuring cross-functional alignment on forecasts, assumptions, risks, and business priorities.
• Analyze historical sales, customer demand, market trends, seasonality, promotional activity, new product introductions, and other factors affecting demand.
• Partner with Sales, Marketing, Finance, Operations, and Supply Planning to gather insights and establish one approved demand plan.
• Monitor forecast performance using metrics such as forecast accuracy, MAPE, bias, and accuracy by product or customer segment.
• Identify root causes of forecast variances and implement corrective actions to improve planning accuracy and reliability.
• Support inventory strategies with demand-based recommendations for safety stock, service levels, and inventory positioning.
• Identify and mitigate risks related to shortages, excess inventory, supply constraints, changing customer requirements, and demand volatility.
• Develop demand plans for new product introductions, product transitions, engineering changes, phase-outs, and discontinuations.
• Identify and quantify demand risks and opportunities, develop planning scenarios, and communicate recommendations to leadership.
• Work with Supply Planning to balance demand with production capacity, material availability, lead times, and inventory objectives.
• Drive continuous improvement in demand-planning processes, systems, reporting, data quality, and cross-functional collaboration.
• Evaluate and apply advanced analytics, automation, and AI or machine-learning forecasting capabilities where appropriate.
• Prepare and present demand reviews, KPI dashboards, forecast scenarios, and executive-level summaries.
• Establish demand-planning policies, procedures, and best practices for scalable processes.

Skills

Forecasting

S&OP/IBP

Cross-functional collaboration

Data analysis

Stakeholder communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain Management, Business, Operations, Statistics, Engineering, or a related field

Master’s degree in Supply Chain Management, Business Administration, Analytics, Engineering, or a related field

Tools

ERP/MRP systems

Excel

Job description

Ashton North LLC seeks a seasoned Supply Chain Demand Manager to lead forecasting and planning across product lines and regions, aligning Sales, Marketing, Finance, Operations, and Supply Chain for optimal availability and inventory control.

You will drive S&OP/IBP processes, improve forecast accuracy, and translate data into actionable strategic guidance for leadership, ensuring responsiveness to market changes and product introductions.