Production Scheduler - Lotis

Monday - Friday from 8am - 5pm

Position Summary

The Production Scheduler is responsible for developing, maintaining, and communicating production schedules to ensure customer requirements are met while maximizing equipment utilization and efficiently coordinating labor, materials, tooling, and production capacity.

This position works closely with Production, Materials, Purchasing, Shipping, Engineering, Quality, Tooling, and Customer Service to establish priorities, minimize unnecessary mold and tooling changeovers, identify potential scheduling conflicts, and maintain an efficient flow of production.

The Production Scheduler must respond quickly to changing customer demands, equipment downtime, material availability, staffing constraints, tooling issues, and other production challenges while minimizing disruption to operations and customer delivery commitments.

Essential Duties And Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain daily, weekly, and forward-looking production schedules based on customer orders, due dates, production capacity, material availability, tooling availability, and staffing requirements.
• Maintain a 24–72 hour forward-looking production schedule that gives Production and supporting departments visibility into upcoming jobs, priorities, mold changes, material requirements, and staffing needs.
• Schedule and prioritize production jobs across available machines and production departments.
• Build schedules that maximize machine utilization and minimize unnecessary mold, tooling, material, and color changeovers.
• Coordinate mold and tooling requirements with Production, Process Technicians, Tooling, and Engineering to ensure scheduled jobs can be completed as planned.
• Review upcoming production requirements and proactively identify potential issues involving molds, tooling, materials, machine capacity, labor, or other resources before they affect the schedule.
• Participate in daily production and manpower meetings to review production status, upcoming requirements, staffing needs, priorities, and potential scheduling constraints.
• Communicate the 24–72 hour production outlook during daily meetings and identify issues requiring action or management support.
• Review open orders and production requirements to confirm customer delivery dates can be achieved.
• Coordinate production schedules with plant leadership, supervisors, process technicians, material handlers, Shipping, and other departments.
• Verify that required raw materials, components, packaging, tooling, molds, and other resources are available before jobs are scheduled.
• Monitor production progress throughout the day and adjust schedules as necessary due to machine downtime, tooling issues, quality concerns, labor shortages, material delays, customer changes, or other production issues.
• Communicate schedule changes and production priorities clearly and promptly to affected departments.
• Identify capacity constraints, scheduling conflicts, material shortages, tooling concerns, and late orders; escalate concerns before they affect customer commitments.
• Work closely with Purchasing and Materials personnel to address shortages that may impact production.
• Coordinate with Shipping to ensure completed products are available to meet customer delivery requirements.
• Work with Engineering, Tooling, and Quality when new products, production trials, mold changes, repairs, or quality issues affect the production schedule.
• Enter, maintain, and review production and scheduling information in Plex to ensure information is accurate and current.
• Monitor job completion and ensure production status and schedule changes are accurately reflected in Plex.
• Review production performance and identify opportunities to improve machine utilization, reduce downtime and unnecessary changeovers, and improve on-time delivery.
• Maintain accurate scheduling records, reports, and production-related documentation.
• Assist management with capacity planning, production forecasting, and identifying future production constraints.
• Perform additional duties as assigned.
  
  
  

Qualifications

• High school diploma/GED or three years’ experience required.
• Associate degree in Business, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Operations, or a related field preferred.
• Previous production scheduling, planning, materials, or manufacturing experience strongly preferred.
• Experience in plastics manufacturing, injection molding, thermoforming, or a similar manufacturing environment preferred.
• Experience with Plex or another ERP/MRP manufacturing system preferred.
• Strong computer skills, including Microsoft Excel and related business software.
• Ability to understand production capacity, machine capabilities, cycle times, lead times, tooling requirements, and manufacturing priorities.
• Strong organization, time management, problem-solving, and analytical skills.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities and make sound scheduling decisions in a fast-paced manufacturing environment.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills and the ability to work effectively across departments.
  
  
  

Knowledge and Skills

• Production planning, scheduling, manufacturing workflow, and capacity planning
• Injection molding and/or plastics manufacturing processes
• Machine capacity and capabilities; mold and tooling requirements; mold and job changeovers
• Raw material, resin, component, packaging, inventory, and material-planning requirements
• Customer order priorities, due dates, production efficiency, downtime, and on-time delivery requirements
• ERP/MRP systems, preferably Plex; production forecasting and capacity analysis
  
  
  

Key Performance Indicators

• On-time delivery performance and production schedule attainment
• Machine utilization and reduction of avoidable downtime caused by scheduling conflicts
• Accuracy and reliability of the 24–72 hour production schedule
• Proactive identification and escalation of material, tooling, machine, labor, or capacity constraints
• Effective reduction of unnecessary mold, tooling, material, and color changeovers
• Accuracy and timeliness of schedules, schedule-change communication, and Plex information
• Effective coordination of materials, tooling, labor, and production requirements
  
  
  

Physical Requirements

• Ability to work in both an office and manufacturing environment.
• Ability to regularly walk through production areas to communicate with employees and verify production status.
• Ability to sit and work at a computer for extended periods.
• Ability to comply with all required safety procedures and personal protective equipment requirements in production areas.
  
  
  

Work Environment

This position operates in both an office and plastics manufacturing environment. The employee may be exposed to manufacturing equipment, elevated noise levels, varying temperatures, moving machinery, and other conditions normally associated with a production facility.