Position: Director of Inventory and Planning Optimization

Reports to: COO

Company Description:

Founded in 1992, Phoenix-based Royal Paper is a privately owned, vertically integrated private label tissue producer offering a complete selection of high-quality tissue products including bath and facial tissue, napkins, and paper towels to retail and commercial markets. Our company has been stable for more than 30 years and continues to grow.

At Royal Paper, we know that employees are at the heart of our reputation for quality, flexibility, customer service and reliability. To support our quest to become the National Leader & preferred partner to our customers, we are seeking to hire motivated individuals who are eager to grow and succeed in a customer focused, team-based culture intent on winning in the marketplace. Applicants must pass a drug and background check. Royal Paper participates in eVerify per state law and is an equal opportunity employer. Thank you for applying for the following position.

Position Description:

The Director of Inventory and Planning Optimization is responsible for maintaining optimized levels of raw materials and finished goods to ensure production efficiency and customer fulfillment while judiciously managing inventory spend. The position is located in Phoenix and will require some travel (25% max) to South Carolina. The successful candidate will build repeatable processes across multiple locations by leveraging strong process and technology capabilities to both set and consistently deliver on streamlined processes. As a key partner to the Director of Logistics, Plant Managers, Finance and Customer Service teams, the successful professional will effectively balance achieving high fill-rates and quality alongside maintaining superior inventory turns and efficient manufacturing operations to achieve strong cash-flow. Reporting to the COO, this strong leader is responsible for optimizing inventory levels by managing the following functions: Planning, Purchasing, Vendor Management, Graphics Development, and Inventory Optimization.

Primary Responsibilities:

Purchasing:

• Strategically and efficiently manage purchasing across a world-wide supplier network
• Leverage integrated process and technology to efficiently execute on a data-driven and repeatable planning process
• Collaborate with the VP of Sales for profitable ramp-up of new product introductions and data-driven product end-of-life management

Vendor Management:

• Optimize vendor footprint to balance resilience with negotiating power
• Identify and onboard new vendors, as appropriate
• Continual improvement of vendor GMROI and payment terms
• Develop and implement a Vendor Scorecard process and achieving continuous improvement in the vendor network to ensure optimal product quality, pricing, and terms

Inventory Optimization

• Provide leadership on Key Performance Indicators that most drive desired results and manage the team to these KPIs (GMROI, Turns, Inventory Reserves, etc.) by segment (geography, customer, product line, market segment, etc.)
• Collaborate with VP of Sales, Director of Logistics, and CFO to ensure balanced decision-making on: stock vs non-stock items, safety stock levels, fill-rate targets, customer special-makes, product introductions (sku additions), product end-of-life decision-making to optimize customer satisfaction, company growth, and cashflow management
• Ensure effective cycle-counting is in place and inventory adjustments are minimized
• Ensure BOM accuracy, maintain BOM visibility to ensure raw material availability and manufacturing efficiency
• Ensure strong alignment with physical material movement and system-generated inventory amounts and locations
• Integration of Acquired Entities
• Ensure strong operational integration and consistent practices across facilities
• Ensure integrated reporting and management
• Lead team integrations and foster cross-learning with acquired entities
• Other
• Ensure safety is a high priority
• Foster positive company culture and strong performance-based opportunity growth among the team
• Demonstrate visible leadership and continuous improvement mind-set with track record of scalable implementation successes
• Be the catalyst for change
• Demonstrate a bias for scalable action; develop and implement performance objectives and countermeasures to ensure achievement of goals with a strong focus on process orientation, technology leverage, and repeatability

Position Requirements:

• Clear Strategic point of view on operational best practices, experience in a best-in-class operations environment
• Experience in Integrated Production Planning systems including Purchasing linkages
• Strong leadership capabilities to lead ongoing transformation for improved scalability, efficiency, repeatability
• A hands-on leader with a “player/ coach” approach
• Aptitude for performance measurement and analysis, clarity on KPIs that drive value
• Experience in acquisition integration
• Adaptability, a test and refine mindset
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree
• 7 years of experience managing teams across key functions highlighted above
• Willingness to travel 25% of time for effective oversite of multi-location, integrated operation