Material Planner

The Material Planner ensures material availability for clinical and commercial cell therapy manufacturing by translating production plans and patient demand into material requirements. This role partners cross-functionally to maintain material readiness, mitigate supply risks, and support on-time manufacturing and patient delivery. The role also provides backup support for production planning and scheduling as needed.

Physical Demands & Work Conditions

• Production Associates: Must have visual acuity of 20/20 (corrected or uncorrected) and normal color vision to safely perform critical tasks such as visual inspection of materials, equipment, and labeling, including distinguishing color-coded components in a GMP environment.
• Must meet cleanroom gowning requirements, including wearing full gowning (face coverings, gloves, hoods, goggles) for up to 3 consecutive hours at a time, minimal movement in the cleanroom, and working with or around human blood, blood-derived materials, cells, other biological materials, and alcohol-based sprays. Use of cosmetics (makeup, painted nails), jewelry, or facial piercings is not permitted in the cleanroom, and any skin conditions that cause shedding must be disclosed.
• Must be comfortable regularly participating in video-based meetings.

Essential Duties & Key Responsibilities:

• Develop and maintain material requirements based on production plans, patient demand, forecasts, bills of materials, lead times, and inventory levels.
• Monitor inventory levels, shelf life, expiration risks, and replenishment parameters to ensure availability of critical manufacturing and QC materials.
• Coordinate with Procurement, Warehouse, Quality, QC, and suppliers to ensure materials are ordered, received, released, and available when needed.
• Identify and proactively communicate material shortages, supply constraints, and other risks that could impact manufacturing schedules or patient delivery.
• Review upcoming production schedules, issued orders for material kits and confirm material readiness for manufacturing campaigns and patient-specific production requirements.
• Partner with Production Planning, Manufacturing, and Supply Chain to resolve material needs, constraints, support schedule changes, and coordinate production recovery activities.
• Provide backup coverage for the Production Planner/Scheduler, including production scheduling, slot management, schedule changes, and communication of manufacturing plans.
• Maintain material planning parameters, reports, dashboards, and key performance indicators to improve inventory visibility, planning accuracy, and supply reliability.
• Support the development and continuous improvement of material planning processes, procedures, and work instructions as the organization scales.
• Perform planning activities in accordance with applicable GMP requirements, company procedures, and quality systems.
• Performs other duties as assigned.

Education & Experience Requirements:

• A.S. degree required, Bachelor's degree preferred in Supply Chain, Operations, Industrial Engineering, Business, Life Sciences, or a related field.
• 3+ years of experience in material planning, supply planning, production planning, inventory management, or a related function within pharmaceutical, biotechnology, cell therapy, medical device, or another regulated manufacturing environment.
• Experience using ERP/MRP systems for material planning and inventory management.
• Strong analytical, organizational, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced manufacturing environment.
• Strong communication and cross-functional collaboration skills.
• High attention to detail and demonstrated ability to identify and resolve supply constraints proactively.
• Ability to work effectively in a GMP environment and follow controlled processes

Personal Qualities & Physical Demands:

• Ability to multitask and handle multiple responsibilities simultaneously; able to prioritize
• Demonstrates strong work ethic, curiosity to learn and contribute in a fast-paced collaborative environment
• Strong interpersonal skills and ability to communicate effectively
• Strong problem-solving and critical thinking skills to support making decisions affecting due dates, quality and cost
• Ability to work in a collaborative manner, independently and as part of a team
• Ability to work in a fast-paced start-up environment while following SOPs
• Highly tolerant and respectful of all team members
• A sense of humor is always appreciated
• Strong problem-solving skills with desire to improve upon established processes
• Ability to work for long periods of time at a computer
• Occasional need to ascend/descend stairs within the workspace; job requires sitting, standing/walking