Manager, Production Planner & Supply Chain

We are seeking a Planning Manager to lead and elevate our planning function for lab automation and capital equipment projects. This role owns planning strategy across demand, supply, capacity, and inventory for custom build-to-order systems and scientific instrumentation. The Planning Manager works cross-functionally to ensure alignment of production schedules, material plans, and delivery commitments while driving continuous improvement in planning processes and tools.

Role & Responsibilities

Planning Leadership

• Owns and drives the planning process end-to-end, balancing demand, supply, capacity, and inventory to meet customer delivery commitments.
• Develops and maintains robust production and master schedules for capital equipment instrument builds.
• Ensures planning models and assumptions are aligned with business priorities and constraints.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partners with Engineering, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Quality, Product Management, and Field Operations to create executable plans that balance speed, cost, and quality.
• Facilitates key planning forums (e.g., weekly planning reviews, monthly SIOP/S&OP/IBP) and escalates risks and dependencies for resolution.
• Communicates plans, risks, and changes clearly to stakeholders and leadership.

Team Development

• Mentors, coaches, and develops planning team members, elevating their execution capability.
• Provides guidance on complex planning decisions and leads by example on process excellence.

Process & Continuous Improvement

• Leads process improvement initiatives to enhance forecast accuracy, planning cycle efficiency, and data integrity.
• Defines and tracks planning performance metrics, identifying gaps and implementing corrective actions.

Risk & Change Management

• Anticipates material, capacity, and schedule risks; drives mitigation plans to address disruptions.
• Manages planning change control and ensures impacts are communicated and understood across the organization.

Required

• Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain, Operations, Engineering, Business, or related field.
• 5+ years of planning, supply chain, or operations experience; with leadership or mentoring responsibility.
• Experience with planning systems, ERP (e.g., D365, SAP), and advanced spreadsheet/data skills.
• Strong analytical, organizational, and communication skills.
• Ability to influence cross-functional partners without direct authority.

Preferred

• Experience in capital equipment, automation, or build-to-order manufacturing environments.
• Experience leading planning strategy or planning teams.
• Formal planning certifications (APICS, CSCP, CPIM, etc.).

About HighRes

We design and build innovative robotic systems and laboratory devices used by pharmaceutical and biotech companies and academic research laboratories. Our work helps scientists accelerate drug discovery, high throughput genotyping, siRNA screening, next-generation sequencing sample prep, biorepository science and molecular diagnostics with highly flexible, expandable, and modular integrated systems, bench-top devices and consumables that are easily configured (and reconfigured) to create research environments conducive to achieving breakthrough results.