Supply Planner at Astron Energy (Pty) Ltd.

The supply planner will be responsible for the production, distribution and replenishment planning for the entire Southern Africa market area. 

• Southern Africa annual sold volume = 200 Mbbl 
• Finished Product Inventory 30 Mbbl
• Raw Material Inventory = 110 MBbl
• Distribution to 5 national depots in South Africa and 2 in Botswana, 1 in Swaziland as well as warehouse at the manufacturing plant in Durban.  .
• Further export to Angola, New Zealand, Namibia , Sri Lanka , Zimbabwe, DRC , Congo. Further export countries will be added in line with growth strategy. 
• Total number of active sku’s in South Africa = 366
• Total number of customers = 825
• Financial Perspective

Planning:           

• Responsible for developing/ maintaining active Supply Plans that balances constrained demand with supply. These activities include: working on product sourcing locations with the regional team based on the sourcing process, implementation of product life cycle decisions (PASMAP); reviewing and enabling raw material substitution opportunities as a result of category management and technology changes.
• Ensure supply chain execution of S&OP Process Standards.  Ensure supply issues are addressed at the appropriate pre-S&OP and S&OP.  Market area Supply Chain representative at  pre-S&OP responsible for identifying, resolving or escalating Supply issues.  Provides visible leadership in support of enterprise success

In-Bound / Raw Materials logistics / Capital Stewardship

• Coordinate with the In-country and Supply team to ensure optimal level of base oils and packaging materials to reduce working capital and ensuring cost effective logistics are utilized.
• Responsible for maintaining sufficient level of base oils and packaging materials to meet demand.
• Responsible for maintaining sufficient finished product stocks to meet demand and monitoring to meet inventory target (days sales).
• Review and make changes to safety stock targets for each SKU on a regular basis.
• Review product range and recommend change in product category/class, if deem appropriate.
• Participate in business planning, capital stewardship analysis and plant capability review as assigned.
• Work with relevant stakeholders, adopt CPDEP to analyze business expectations and environment, identify needs, develop and recommend plant development plan.
• Gatekeeper for the sourcing process to ensure compliance with the governance. Work with  team to source finished product and raw material as required and in accordance to the sourcing governance.
• Reviews product ranges and recommends changes in product category/class when appropriate.

Production Planning

• Plan, review and develop Master Production Schedule for monthly, weekly plan for Lubricants and procured finished product.
• Ensure adjustment in plan is timely, justifiable and at lowest cost possible. Coordinate with Supply team, Production team, Distribution team and Demand planner for any changes in the demand plan. Executes/ ensures production plans are realistic and are based on demand plan, safety stock requirements, plant capability and availability of raw materials.
• Ensure that the Master Data is accurate and up-to-date in the relevant planning system.
• Issue Production Plan, recommending number of shift operations to meet demand while ensuring compliances with AE and HES requirements.

Distribution Planning

• Collate demand requirements from all stakeholders - Sales, Affiliates, Marine and external customers by SKU and locations
• Review inventory level at warehouse both in-country and at affiliates’
• Perform Distribution Planning ensuring that all demand planning requirements have been included.
• Understand Produced Product Costs and Sources from most economic supply. Finalize DRP schedule and communicate to respective stakeholders accordingly
• Participate in monthly Pre-S&OP and S&OP meeting to address and resolve issue pertaining to the demand and supply.
• Track accuracy of the DRP, review performance by locations, identify root causes and take appropriate actions to resolves issues and make adjustment to plan when needed.

Sales & Operation Planning

• Close Coordination with the Sales team through Pre-S&OP and S&OP meeting to establish demand in market area
• Liaise with Sales and Marketing teams on product introductions, promotional and non-routine events to mitigate any surge or drop in the demand
• Resolve demand and supply issues, conduct root cause analysis of and variance and identify action plans.
• Focuses S&OP execution on improving business performance. Responsible to ensure the S&OP process in market area focuses on improving financial and operational performance based on direction from the Leadership team though cross functional engagement and alignment
• Understands Demand Planning process and impact of inaccurate Master and transactional; data.
• Provide decision support packages to market area S&OP decision makers along with Demand Planner on the impact to supply of potential decision alternatives.  Develops alternative solutions to supply constraints.  May conduct Supply Plans simulations to quantify impacts.

Customer Perspective
Service Level Agreements: 

• Facilitates periodic (e.g. annual or more frequent) review of Service Level Agreements with endorsement at S&OP to balance service levels and cost to serve. 
• Annually reviews logistics rules for materials movements (in consult with Logistics & Production teams) and updates system.

Business Excellence
Project Management

• Establish and promote a culture of best-in-class process, programs and system development.
• Responsible for operationalizing and project management for the products and procurement sourcing strategy implementation.  Involve with building implementation details with facilities and ensures effective implementation plan for execution is followed.  Monitors the progress and directs improvements in the process.
• Fully responsible for execution of the change process.  Manage the change actions to ensure seamless transitions with no impact to supply chain performance.
• Ensures implementation plans (Network, BCP, and Product and Packaging changes) are integrated into the Operating plan in a timely and accurate manner to align Marketing, Sales, Base Oil and Supply Chain with customers and external suppliers.
• Responsible for scoping change requirements for new finished products blending and raw materials introduction/changeover, logistics and transportation and network optimization impact.  Provides primary market area Supply Chain point of contact between  Planning team, Product Line Management, Logistics and Procurement for strategy implementation.
• Participate in PASMAPs as needed.

Quality and Process Management

• Operate, execute using planning tools (e.g. APO, Demand Solutions, etc) – Production planning module so as to ensure production plans are realistic and are based on demand plan, safety stock requirements, plant capability and availability of raw materials.
• Communicate, coordinate and arrange meeting with Production, Distribution and Supply teams to follow up on actual production versus plan, report variance, issue and concerns of the various functions with objective to identify actions required to ensure uninterrupted supply and planning. These would include Daily Operations meeting, Weekly Planning meetings, MOS and Monthly Sales and Operations meeting (S&OP).
• Quality System Maintenance. Perform all steps required in the Company Quality System as well as comply with duties and responsibilities as established in the ISO  procedures and work instructions. Participates in business planning, capital stewardship analysis and plant capability reviews as assigned.
• Identifies long term (18 Mo) capacity constraints, and material resource plan. Identifies solutions to supply constraints including outsourcing and capital investment.
• Ensures standardization of KPI’s and provides input for new metrics to regional SC Analyst and planners.   Understands forecast accuracy & basis; OTIF results, root cause analysis & corrective action plan; complexity metrics.  Owns execution of OTIF process for products with S&OP scope.  Responsible for tracking agreed upon actions to improve OTIF. 
• Inventory Management: leads the cross functional efforts to ensure actions are in place for Old & Slow items with objective of minimal/ nil write offs.
• Provide SC Team with technical assistance on planning processes.  Viewed as subject matter expert on operationalizing the S&OP process.
• Works with Sales, Marketing, Production & Logistics to optimize inventory planning parameters (e.g. Min ESLs, Reorder points, Lead times) to meet service level agreements

People Management

• Supervise direct report to ensure safe, reliable, and efficient operations

Professional Qualification and Certifications:

• 3 year Tertiary Qualification in Commerce, Finance, Accounting, Supply Chain

Work Experience:

• 3-5 years in strategic and operational planning
• Petrol Chemical environment will be advantage
• Experience in  developing/ maintaining active Supply Plans that balances constrained demand with supply

Knowledge and skills:

• Analytical Thinking and Problem Solving
• Planning and Aligning
• Project Management