Senior Planner

Roche fosters diversity, equity and inclusion, representing the communities we serve. When dealing with healthcare on a global scale, diversity is an essential ingredient to success. We believe that inclusion is key to understanding people’s varied healthcare needs. Together, we embrace individuality and share a passion for exceptional care. Join Roche, where every voice matters.

A healthier future. It’s what drives us to innovate. To continuously advance science and ensure everyone has access to the healthcare they need today and for generations to come.

Creating a world where we all have more time with the people we love.

That’s what makes us Roche.

The Opportunity:

Join our dynamic team in Cape Town as a Senior Planner, where your organizational prowess and attention to detail will drive the end-to-end management of production activities from raw materials to final products. You will play a critical role in aligning with customer specifications and ensuring timely delivery by collaborating with diverse teams of managers and scientists. Your responsibilities include mid to long-term production planning based on forecasts, optimizing inventory levels, coordinating quality control activities, and supporting new product launches. If you are self-motivated, flexible, and have a strong work ethic, this is an excellent opportunity to contribute to a high-performing team and achieve Right First Time objectives.

Key Challenges:

1. Production Planning: Develop mid to long-term production plans.
2. Stakeholder Collaboration: Engage with external stakeholders for custom product requirements and forecast changes.
3. Material Management: Ensure manufacturing schedules meet delivery timelines for both Make-to-Order (MTO) and Off-The-Shelf (OTS) products.
4. Forecast Maintenance: Manually upload and maintain forecasts for materials not linked to demand planning interface.
5. Risk Mitigation: Identify end-of-life materials and mitigate scrap value.
6. Reporting: Create, edit, and finalize reports on raw materials, scrap, expiration, audits, and other management requests.
7. MRP Optimization: Monitor and update MRP fields in the SAP material master to optimize supply elements and safety stock levels.
8. Meeting Leadership: Lead weekly meetings on production materials, timelines, and delays.
9. Production Coordination: Align proposed production activities with stakeholders and coordinate between manufacturing and QC departments.
10. Plan Adjustment: Review and update production plans as needed, keeping the Sr Manager for Supply Chain informed.
11. Internal Requests Fulfillment: Assign and fulfill internal item requests.
12. SOP Management: Write/revise Standard Operating Procedures to ensure regulatory compliance.
13. Issue Proactivity: Identify and communicate issues proactively.
14. Product Launch Support: Oversee production planning for new product launches and support project managers.
15. Demand Analysis: Implement production plans to meet demand and ensure on-time delivery/right-first-time objectives.
16. Daily Planning: Convert production plans into daily, weekly, or monthly schedules and collaborate closely with production schedulers.
17. Financial Goals Management: Achieve inventory goals and support internal value stream objectives.
18. Parameter Updates: Adjust planning parameters to meet delivery and inventory targets.
19. Additional Duties: Execute other tasks as assigned by management.

Who You Are as our Ideal Candidate

1. You hold a completed Degree in Science (Biology, Life Sciences or similar) or Business (Logistics, Operations, Supply Chain).
2. You have at least 5 years demonstrated experience in inventory management/production scheduling, you have experience in using SAP ERP and you have knowledge of Lean concepts. Demonstrated successful experience in Kanban, VMI, and Consignment implementation is also required. 6 Sigma or Lean trained or Certified (Black or Green Belt) candidates have a distinct advantage.

Other Requirements:

You have strong multitasking abilities and the capacity to prioritize and manage workloads efficiently with minimal supervision. The ideal candidate should be proficient in Google cSuite and possess knowledge of MRP/SAP system logic, which would be advantageous. Key personal competencies include attention to detail, initiative, planning and organizing, building relationships, and a drive to achieve. Additionally, the candidate should demonstrate strong interpersonal skills, including a strong work ethic, being a team player, effective communication, time management, and flexibility.

Who we are

At Roche, more than 100,000 people across 100 countries are pushing back the frontiers of healthcare. Working together, we’ve become one of the world’s leading research-focused healthcare groups. Our success is built on innovation, curiosity and diversity.

Roche is an Equal Opportunity Employer.