Planning Job Opening in South Africa

Kerry Group today is a world leader in Taste & Nutrition serving the food, beverage and pharmaceutical industries and a leading consumer foods processing and marketing organisation in selected EU markets. With sales to over 140 countries worldwide, the Kerry organisation has grown to become a highly successful public company, having achieved sustained profitable growth with current annualised sales in excess of €5.8 billion. Launched as a public company in 1986, the market capitalisation of the Group has grown to a current level of approximately €12 billion. Kerry Group now employs over 24,000 people throughout its worldwide activities and operations.

The Supply & Demand Planning position is responsible for all forecasting activities associated with customers and products. The planner creates and maintains forecast models for their customers, incorporating business intelligence and forecast information gathered from sales, marketing, finance and other sources.

Description and Responsibilities :

• Develop supply and demand forecasts (operational forecasts) at multiple levels of aggregation for multiple time horizons as part of a demand planning function.
• Review historical sales trends, research demand drivers, prepare forecast data, develop statistical forecast models, and evaluate forecast results.
• Coordinate cross-functional research activities to reconcile significant variances and refine the forecast model to reflect updated sales and marketing assumptions.
• Interact with sales, marketing, and customer finance to understand demand forecast drivers.
• Utilize a collaborative and consensus approach by working with Sales, Marketing and Customer Finance to obtain and ensure that current and accurate information is used for demand forecasts.
• Provide input to the Supply Planning organization in developing inventory strategies on existing items, new products, and product phase-outs.
• Closely coordinate and communicate customer action plans with the planning department.
• Review shortages alerts from system, conduct root cause analyusis for the shortage and amend.
• Review Safetey stock Alerts for Made-to-Stock (MTS) products.
• Distribution requirements planning by reviewing if goods need to be receipted/shipped in between plant and Distribution Centre.
• Mid-Term Capacity Planning by reviewing capacity plan and ensuring MTS production is scheduled and fixed in the Supply Network Planning (SNP) Extended Horizon.
• Long-Term Capacity Planning by generating a long-term production plan based on forecast (MTO and MTS).
• Sales and Operations Planning by reviewing demand plan and Supply Plan to resolve capacity issues and come up with the Long-Term Production Plan (MTO and MTS).
• Interfaces with production to convert rough-cut production plan to finite schedule on a weekly basis.
• Review potential shortages daily and communicate potential shortage information to appropriate departments.
• Responsible for notifying Procurement & Plant Planning of significant changes that affect high-risk items.
• Participate in meetings with cross-functional team members to support business initiatives and adjust plans accordingly.
• Represents supply chain in project and cross functional project teams.
• Responsible for driving resolution of any shelf life issues on packaging and raw materials with Procurement.
• Ensure monthly inventory forecasting.
• Provide labour forecasts to Production on a monthly basis.

Qualifications :

Job Requirements

• Supply Chain degree/diploma or related and +3 years of relevant experience.
• Proven track record in Supply Chain, S&OP, forecasting and MRP.
• Advanced experience in Excel, preferably you have experience with SAP and SAP APO.
• Excellent analytical and conceptual skills.
• Excellent communication and influencing skills.