Site WIP Planner

About Unilever

Unilever is a global business impacting 3.4 billion people across more than 190 countries with products that are household favorites. Committed to sustainable living as a core purpose, the company believes that acting ethically drives superior business results. The people at Unilever work with a shared purpose to build a better business and world.

Job Purpose

The Site WIP Planner is tasked with efficiently scheduling factory production in daily and weekly increments. Using customer demand forecasts and finished goods inventory levels, the planner aims to maximize customer service at minimal costs. Responsibilities include reconciling supply with demand for planned lines, escalating exceptions to relevant hubs, managing overflow requirements with third party planners if needed, reporting and reducing output reliability losses alongside manufacturing teams, aligning production plans with finished goods working capital targets, and ensuring optimized system-generated plans are maintained.

Key Responsibilities

• Utilize APO software to optimally plan factory resources, including labor, machinery, and materials to meet service targets.
• Coordinate production schedules with material planners to ensure adequate material availability before confirming plans to factory.
• Communicate weekly production schedules with the production team and identify and resolve or escalate constraints as necessary.
• Negotiate alternative plans with supply planners to alleviate scheduling conflicts.
• Provide rolling contingency plans for third party requirements over weeks 0–4.
• Highlight risks impacting export and local volume deliveries to the Intercompany Sourcing Manager and Supply Planner.
• Calculate and propose demonstrated capacities monthly to Operations for approval and use in supply planning; maintain APO master data accordingly.
• Monitor prior week’s performance against plan and adjust production orders in collaboration with Operations, accounting for demand and priorities.
• Flag short-term risks in the frozen period to Supply Planner weekly.
• Evaluate exceptions during frozen periods from a line utilization perspective and liaise with material planners on material impacts.
• Work with operations to develop run schedules that minimize downtime and optimize output without compromising service.
• Reconcile supply and demand by aligning sourcing unit calendars for 0–104 weeks, coordinating shift and overtime assumptions with Supply Planning.
• Address production constraints with operations team and implement solutions such as extra shifts or overtime.
• Maintain a thorough understanding of CPT for scenario planning.
• Review and manage output reliability losses weekly in coordination with sourcing and operations teams, establishing actions to minimize future losses and reporting progress in meetings.
• Collaborate with Innovation Planner to integrate trial requirements into the sourcing calendar, oversee production time allocation, estimate resource write-offs, and manage old stock bleed out to reduce waste.
• Align production plans to packaging material runs to avoid simultaneous waste.
• Ensure production plans meet working capital targets including stock cover and cost constraints while considering warehouse capacity.
• Support Factory Accounts and Site Logistics in material usage control and lead working capital reduction efforts through strategies and optimizations.
• Create and maintain relevant SAP and APO master data including MRP configurations for Semi-Finished Goods and conduct regular data health checks.
• Escalate unresolved APO planning issues to Key User and Business Excellence.
• Support reporting efforts including MUC management, customer service update, OR loss capture, and provide data for loss analyses and S&OP meetings.

Experience and Qualifications

• 3 to 5 years of experience in planning or manufacturing roles.
• Degree or diploma in Supply Chain Management or related disciplines.
• Advanced understanding of planning processes including 'Plan', 'Make', and 'Source'.
• Proficiency in MS Office, strong Excel skills, and experience with SAP and Kinaxis.

Key Skills

• Cross-functional teamwork and collaboration
• Strong operational planning expertise
• Inventory and waste management knowledge
• End-to-end supply chain understanding
• Business insight and acumen
• Resilience and adaptability

Leadership and Behaviors

The ideal candidate demonstrates energy and resilience in achieving results, acts as a role model through their work ethic, constantly seeks improvements by engaging others, and takes personal accountability. Humility and data-driven decision making to identify issues and opportunities are important. The candidate must adhere to Unilever’s core behaviors: caring deeply about consumer experience and performance, focusing on critical priorities, anticipating future trends, and delivering with excellence and speed.

Diversity and Inclusion

Unilever is an equal opportunity employer, committed to workplace diversity and inclusion. Applications from candidates representing diverse backgrounds including age, gender, disability, sexual orientation, race, religion, or belief are encouraged. Employment equity and broad-based black economic empowerment considerations apply. Candidates must have legal authorization to work in South Africa; foreign nationals may need to provide supporting documentation.

Additional Details

Location for this role is Indonsa, Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The role is full-time and onsite, reporting to the Market Collaboration Planner - Site Lead Foods with a Southern Africa regional scope.