Manager, Demand Planning

at  Thermo Fisher Scientific

JOB DESCRIPTION

As part of the Thermo Fisher Scientific team, you’ll discover meaningful work that makes a positive impact on a global scale. Join our colleagues in bringing our Mission to life every single day to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. We provide our global teams with the resources needed to achieve individual career goals while helping to take science a step beyond by developing solutions for some of the world’s toughest challenges, like protecting the environment, making sure our food is safe or helping find cures for cancer.

GROUP/DIVISION SUMMARY:

The Demand Planning Process Manager is part of the Laboratory Products Divisions: Laboratory Plastics essentials and Laboratory Equipment. It reports to the Director, Supply Chain Management Excellence. Location for this position is Pittsburgh, PA site. For internal candidates, other select Laboratory Products Thermo Fisher sites/offices will be considered.

POSITION SUMMARY:

The Demand Planning Process Manager will lead the global demand planning process strategy and own the demand SIOP process standards. They will be responsible to build demand forecasting & planning capabilities, ensuring the alignment amongst all partners including but not limited to sales, commercial, product management, finance and demand & supply planning organization.
This role is responsible for Demand Planning and Demand SIOP process improvements, KPIs, analytics and reporting, interacting with all the involved functions to ensure customer satisfaction and effective business and end-to-end supply chain planning. It will lead the implementation and execution of industry Demand Planning best practices, ensuring their sustainability and overall maturity progression over time, collaborating with key partners, from executive leaders to planners.

EDUCATION

• Bachelor’s degree in supply chain management, Industrial Engineering, or related field is required.
• Master of Business Administration (MBA) or other advanced degree preferred.

KEY SKILLS, ABILITIES AND EXPERIENCE REQUIRED

• 7+ years’ experience within Demand Planning, Supply Planning or similar roles.
• Deep domain expertise in demand planning. Strong understanding of demand planning proficiencies such as statistical modeling, event and promotional modeling, business driver correlation and product life cycle management (introduction, transition, cannibalization, EOL).
• Experience leading a cross-functional SIOP process.
• Experience leading projects and driving continuous improvements with a disciplined approach. Six Sigma Green / Black Belt Certification preferred.
• Demand planning Software experience and/or implementation (Kinaxis Rapid Response, FPRO, Demantra or similar).
• Demonstrated change management experience and ability to lead through change and rapid growth.
• Strategic problem solver and planner.
• Influential leader with the ability to work across functions and a culturally diverse organization.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills.
• Strong analytic skills. Able to translate data insights into business outcomes, recommendation and decisions.
• Experience in the Life Science or Medical Device industry preferred.
• APICS certification preferred.

• Establish best practices and maintain process documentation/task flows.
• Define and implement process improvements in Demand Planning; accountable for ongoing improvements in forecast accuracy and bias, in partnership with demand planning, product management, commercial organization and internal/external customers.
• Integrate backlog, statistical forecasting, promotions, portfolio management, market intelligence, industry trends and other demand signals (i.e. customer forecasts) to create an 18-month consensus demand plan for the Business Units, throughout the monthly SIOP cycle.
• Develop conclusions and make recommendations about demand plan opportunities and risks, to improve business performance.
• Ensure adherence to Demand planning and Demand SIOP process standards.

Forecast Metrics

• Develop and maintain monthly forecast accuracy and forecast bias metric.
• Drive root cause analysis and countermeasures development.
• Identify SIOP and S&OE KPIs impacted by demand-planning activities and outputs.

Process Improvement

• Lead projects, Kaizen events and learning sessions with planners and other functional teams, to improve performance.
• Maintains, enhances, or recommends improvements to demand planning technology.
• Works on software & tool development, activation of new functionality and on resolving break fixes.