Manufacturing production planners are responsible for the planning and smooth running of production processes in a manufacturing company. They draw up a schedule of work, which is agreed with the production manager or director. But what does a Manufacturing Production Planner do on a day-to-day basis?
Seanán McNulty is Production Planner for IG Elements. We asked her to take us through her typical work day.
Tell us a bit about your typical day from start to finish
When I first started at IG Elements, I was in the Technical department working closely with Solidworks and product design but I now help out with Production on top of this.
My role is to ensure that the production output from the previous working day is booked in to stock to enable logistics to plan runs for each unit. Scheduling deliveries for out completed products.
I begin with calculating the sales value for each day, comparing against target values for the month. This gives the production staff an insight into to their progress by month.
Another important part of my job is to plan the weekly schedule, taking many variables into consideration: customer requested date, mould usage, size of mould, value of each unit etc.
Planning the schedule includes ensuring urgent or priority jobs are pushed through production, making sure we aren’t behind on production and that labels are printed for each unique unit for easy picking for logistics.
Additionally, on a day-to-day basis, I liaise with the production team, sales order processing team and customer service team to prevent any issues or errors from occurring in production and liaise with external suppliers to ensure we get our product on time for the customer.
I also get daily updates on how production is looking, and how the next couple of days within production may look.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
I love learning new things every day, such as getting to know the (Microsoft) Nav System better. I mainly use NAV for access to LIVE orders in order to schedule the daily production correctly and booking correct units in to stock.
I was never a part of a production team before this job, so I’ve learnt priceless information about how the department functions.
I also enjoy the responsibilities involved with the job, working closely with various departments within the company and working with the team we have here at IG Elements. The people here make the job that little bit more enjoyable.
Why did you choose this career path?
I’ve always been associated with some part of the construction industry from a young age. I really enjoyed design when I was at school. Design is exciting and refreshing and this is why I went down the engineering route.
On top of this, I wanted to put my stamp on a very male-dominated industry and show others that women can be a part of any industry they wish, to help wipe out stereotyping!
What are the biggest challenges in your job?
Working closely with the ever changing production demands is a big challenge in my job, as well as figuring out systems that suit our production team best to ensure things run smoothly on the shop floor.