Production/Deployment Scheduler

At Eagle Foods we are builders.  We are builders of brands, categories, and people.  Eagle Foods enjoys a rich heritage with brands that have proven category leadership for more than 150 years.  Eagle is a diversified food company producing and marketing sweetened condensed and evaporated milk, snacks and convenient meal solutions products.  As a company, Eagle Foods is passionate about fostering an entrepreneurial spirit that boldly builds better people and better brands while focusing on the positive impact our company, our products and our people have on the world.  Eagle Foods has a bold family of brands that consumers have come to rely on for decades, including Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk and Evaporated Milk, Magnolia Sweetened Condensed Milk, PET Milk, Popcorn Indiana, Cretors Popcorn, Helper and Suddenly Salad.  Eagle Foods products are marketed and distributed across all U.S. retail channels, including grocery stores, club stores and mass-merchandisers, as well as foodservice and export, U.S. military, and private label business.

• Maintain tools & data required to create weekly production schedule by working with the Manager of Supply Planning and the plant to understand:
  • Which sku's are Make to Order (MTO) vs. Make to Stock (MTS)
  • How safety stocks are set for each make to stock finished goods sku and what the safety stock levels are for all items you are asked to plan
  • The plant operating strategy inclusive of production system identification, hours of operation by production system, overtime communication and lead time expectations, process system rates by formula, packing asset rates and efficiencies, how bag sizes should be paired to ensure process assets are not blocked by packaging rates, sanitation requirements, desired production sequences, minimum run lengths/quantities on each production system, key staffing constraints/considerations, and how downtime and experimental runs are scheduled and communicated
• Develop a working knowledge of production lines, systems, and plant floor operations, including processes flows, bottlenecks/constraints, and performance drivers, to enable effective and realistic scheduling decisions while actively engaging with plant floor.
• Build production plans & detailed line schedules weekly by using all the above components to create feasible, optimized line schedules by day for assigned production systems that both deliver the business needs and align with the plant operating strategy. Production schedules should be developed to maintain safety stock levels considerate of all open orders on MTS items and cover orders for MTO items.
  • Release schedule to the plant and adjust MOs within the week when inventory needs will not be sufficient to maintain safety stocks or meet open orders and propose options to enable orders to be covered or safety stocks to be restored. Be open to feedback on proposed solutions to create win-win outcomes.
  • Effectively communicate weekly schedule & work with others to ensure the business needs are being met by attending daily and weekly plant scheduling meetings to:
    • Review proposed production plans for agreed to future periods
    • Get feedback on the proposed plan and align changes to optimize the business (service & plant performance)
    • Get updates on material inventory and delivery status
    • Propose in week adjustments to production schedules and discuss why the schedule needs to be changed.
    • Incorporate plan changes agreed to by business partners (plant leadership, material planners, your manager, etc.) into the schedule
    • Work with customer service on when product will be available to fill customer orders
• Own production and deployment plans end to end, partnering with local plant leadership and cross functional teams to proactively address issues align on solutions and deliver reliable outcomes
• Plan and execute new item launches, in and out events, and item transitions in a way that delivers fill rate but minimizes obsolescence
• Schedule inventory deployment to the distribution network to support target inventory levels and customer demand
• Handle sensitive and confidential business information related to production plans, inventory levels, customer demand, plant performance, and deployment strategies with discretion and professionalism.
• Other duties and projects, as assigned

Qualifications & Competencies

• Knowledge of production scheduling and supply chain planning processes, interdependencies
• Evaluates and manages the downstream and upstream impacts of scheduling changes, balancing service, inventory and operational constraints
• Strong communication skills, verbal and written including 'seeking to understand, then to be understood'
• Experience doing detailed line scheduling in an ERP system; preferably experience using INFOR Scheduling Workbench
• MS Office skills inclusive of an ability to use Outlook, Word, and Excel
• Demonstrated ability to learn new skills and new ways of working, and apply them in a professional environment
• Initiative and follow through, self-starter. Ability to work independently and meet goals/objectives
• Ability to identify, effectively resolve (most of the time) and escalate (some of the time, when needed) issues that will negatively impact the business
• Continuous improvement mindset including being willing to challenge the status quo when business needs are not being met
• Collaboration skills and an ability to work with others to create win-win outcomes

Minimum Requirements

• 3 to 5 years of experience in planning and scheduling desired
• BS or BA degree from an accredited university desired. Experience in lieu of degree considered 

Additional Information:

Work Environment:

• This position will be an on-site role (not remote or hybrid), 5 days per week, at the Waukegan factory.
• This role may require domestic travel few times a year to Eagle Corporate office in Cleveland, Ohio or to Buffalo Grove, Illinois

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing tasks and responsibilities of the job.