Key responsibilities
The Production Planning Specialist is primarily responsible for supporting the Asia sourcing teams in Asia in identifying and professionally managing potential risks that may impact on-time delivery from vendors located in Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries.
The position will take the lead in production planning to support the successful launch of key programs in stores and online, review vendor production capacity, and work with vendor factories to optimize production and inventory performance.
The role will also explore opportunities to reduce PO lead time through analysis of vendors PO handling processes and proactively identify opportunities for manufacturing process improvement and supply chain optimization.
Production Planning
- Systematically manage projects through effective processes, maintaining consistency and clear prioritization in daily work.
- Proactively conduct regular communication with sourcing teams and vendors to strengthen production planning capabilities and effectively leverage available resources.
- Take initiative to become involved early in high-risk programs and professionally manage capacity risks to ensure smooth execution.
- Support vendors in optimizing production planning and securing on-time delivery.
Capacity Improvement
- Proactively identify improvement opportunities and guide sourcing teams in driving related projects and initiatives.
- Work with sourcing teams to conduct demand and vendor factory capacity-gap analyses to identify areas for improvement.
- Validate vendor improvement plans and implementation progress and communicate updates with sourcing teams.
- Support vendors in optimizing capacity and inventory planning to secure on-time delivery.
- Drive production and warehouse capacity improvement initiatives.
Production Efficiency Improvement
- Partner with sourcing teams to coach selected vendor factories on production efficiency improvements and related manufacturing cost reductions.
- Evaluate vendor partners PO lead-time processes and identify improvement opportunities to reduce shipment lead time while maintaining on-time performance.
- Verify item dimensions on-site and identify opportunities to improve container loading and unloading efficiency.
Job qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, or another related major.
- Minimum 3 years of relevant experience in Industrial Engineering or factory operations.
- Good knowledge of manufacturing processes, raw materials, and product cost analysis.
- Broad understanding of product development, sourcing, quality management, and logistics-related processes.
- Effective communication skills and ability to collaborate with cross-location sourcing teams.
- Ability to work independently with strong self-management capability.
- Strong problem-solving and project management skills.
- Good statistical, quantitative, and analytical skills, with competency in Excel or Access for basic data analysis.
- Fluent in English. Chinese is preferred.
- Knowledge of LEAN/Kaizen methodologies and tools is preferred.
- Quality assurance knowledge of ISO 9001 is preferred.
