Materials Planner

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At Lactalis in the USA, we’re committed to providing meaningful opportunities for our people to learn, grow, and thrive—whether you’re just starting your journey with us or looking to take the next step in your career. From day one, we offer the tools and support to help you succeed.

As the world leader in dairy, Lactalis is a family-owned company with over 85,000 pragmatic and ambitious professionals across the globe. Each day, we’re proud to produce award-winning dairy products that bring people together.

In the US, we proudly offer an unrivaled house of beloved brands, including Galbani® Italian cheeses and ricotta, Président® specialty cheeses and butters, Kraft® natural and grated cheeses, Breakstone’s® cottage cheese, Cracker Barrel®, Black Diamond® cheddar, and Parmalat® milk. Our yogurt portfolio includes siggi’s®, Stonyfield Organic®, Brown Cow™, Oui®, Yoplait®, Go-Gurt®, :ratio®, Green Mountain Creamery®, and Mountain High®, along with a growing family of ethnic favorites like Karoun®, Gopi®, and Arz®.

At Lactalis, we live by our core values—Ambition, Engagement, and Simplicity. We foster a workplace where innovation thrives, diverse perspectives are celebrated, and everyone’s unique background and ideas are valued.

Even if you don’t meet every qualification, we encourage you to apply. We want to hear about your PASSION, your STORY, and how your EXPERTISE can help us shape the future of dairy.

From your PASSION to ours

Lactalis Heritage Dairy, part of the Lactalis family of companies, is currently hiring a Materials Planner based in Chicago, IL.

The Materials Planner is responsible for ensuring the continuity of supply of raw and packaging materials to production facilities.  Develops and manages replenishment strategies for assigned materials.  Optimizes the balance between supply availability, inventory investment and risk of obsolescence.  Works cross functionally with Marketing, Procurement, R&D, Suppliers, Quality, Plants, Product Change Managers, and Finance on commercialization and productivity change management initiatives to ensure on-time materials availability and cost minimizing transitions.  Leads and collaborates with plants on inventory reduction inventory reduction initiatives by leveraging SAP and supplier capabilities to align with BU manufacturing strategy.

From your EXPERTISE to ours

• Ensure flawless execution of the materials management aspects of commercialization and change management initiatives to ensure customer and productivity commitments are met by establishment and maintenance of effective communications with internal contacts (R&D, Procurement, Quality, Finance, Marketing, Plants, BU leadership) and external contacts (suppliers & External Manufacturers).
• Deliver transition strategy alternatives to the BU which enable cost-based decisions.  Execute transition plan to minimize write-offs.
• Ensure availability of materials through delivery of supplier forecasts, supplier collaboration, establishment of effective communications and monitoring of key touch points.  This delivers capability to produce finished goods as desired to enable delivery of service level to customers.
• Develop and implement optimal inventory replenishment strategies with Procurement, Suppliers, and Plants which align with BU manufacturing strategy, desired service levels, and BU risk profile.  This provides cost-based supplier run rules and clarifies liability for supplier held inventory.
• Develop and lead inventory reduction initiatives entailing optimization of SAP MRP parameters, total supply chain process improvement, and application of Lean principles.  Ensure delivery of cash flow goals
• Minimize impact of unneeded excess inventory through transfer to other locations, return to supplier, or salvage sale (ingredients).
• Provide input to Procurement on projected volumes, business changes, supplier performance, and contractual needs so that Procurement can write contracts that serve the BUs and minimize total cost
• Manage major supply disruptions driven by extraordinary events (flood, supplier bankruptcy, supplier Equipment failure, major quality issues, etc).
• Understand supplier capacity constraints and have appropriate contingency plans in place to maintain supply when capacity is exceeded.
• Maintain key data impacting job function such as contract balances and material discontinuation

From your STORY to ours

Qualified applicants will contribute the following:

• Bachelor’s Degree required
• 3+ years of experience of related experience in supply chain required, materials planning experience is preferred
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills with a strong ability to work cross-functionally and with various management levels
• Strong computer and analytical skills
• Planner/scheduler experience is desirable
• Drive for results
• Attention to detail
• Strong influencing skills
• Total supply chain perspective
• Strong problem solving skills with data driven, total cost approach