Production Planning Officer in Sydney

GMP Pharmaceuticals Group is a leading private-owned contract manufacturing company based in Australia and New Zealand specializing in complementary, healthcare and dairy products. Established in 1994, we have grown into one of the largest organizations in the industry with 5 TGA and Medsafe licensed facilities serving many clients both locally and in over 30 countries around the world. We are committed to delivering the best quality products and exceptional service to ensure our clients’ success.

Role and Responsibilities:

• The role is to assist the planning team in ensuring DIFOT, monitoring production efficiency and product quality.
• Actively coordinate and liaise with relevant internal stakeholders to solve production and product quality issues and manage potential risks.
• Perform data management and analysis for process improvement planning.
• Maintain and be responsible for a broad range of Planning activities categorized as below, but not limited to:

Scheduling:

• Receive sale orders from Marketing via Pronto system, carefully confirm several elements before drafting a production plan: Production formulas and specification (PFS) & Bill of Material (BOM); availability of bulk goods, raw & packaging material; confirm production capacity; inspect potential production issues and clarify any special requirements.
• Develop efficient and achievable plans that utilize resources and balance workload.
• Draft production schedule, consult with Production Manager to ensure optimum performance, minimize delays and meet client’s requirements.
• Seek approval from Production Manager for drafted production schedule.
• Send it through with detailed explanation including essential deadline of each product, conditions and additional notes to Marketing to review.
• Make necessary adjustments to the production schedule as required by Marketing.
• Inform confirmed plan to Production as well as relevant internal departments.

Work Order Maintaining:

• Correctly create batch documents and record in the “batch registers”.
• Raise Additional Page, Planned Deviation, Factor or Rework requests to QA when necessary.
• Print batch documents and provide them to QA for logging and approval.
• Provide the logged and approved batch documents to production in time.
• Ensure the integrity and security of any printed batch documents.
• Ensure the consistency between system work orders and “batch register” record.

Monitoring and Reporting:

• Ensure production activities are carried out according to confirmed plan.
• Record production daily report figures on production schedule.
• Closely monitor production activities and gather first-hand information about productivity, quality, production issues and any deviations or incidents.
• Closely monitor production batch card completion progress.
• Monitor and record any instances of rework, reject and incidents in detail.

Communication and Coordination:

• Update Marketing on any delay or ahead of the planned production in a timely manner.
• Regularly communicate with Marketing for any quality issues.
• Actively communicate with production managers for any production related issues.
• Work with production to arrange overtime when necessary and make sure all relevant departments are well informed of the arrangement.
• Work closely with Marketing, R&D and QA to assist with new product development and maintain production trial log.
• Work closely with QA/QC, IPQC, Production and R&D in regard to any quality issues, analysing root causes and providing solutions.
• Escalate complex issues with details to upper management for solution immediately.
• Work with Warehouse/Procurement on inventory management to avoid shortages and excesses.
• Coordinate with Warehouse team to maintain the reasonable stock level to meet the production requirements.
• Work with Finance to assist with slow moving stock process and stock adjustment.
• Work closely with Logistics to obtain dispatch details and inform Marketing.
• Play an organizer and driver role in terms of above-mentioned points.

Data Analysis:

• Record sales order details for each month and perform sales order analysis.
• Prepare monthly productivity report including detailed analysis of total output, efficiency, yield analysis, trends and product/brand analysis.
• Gather relevant data for any other specific analysis required.
• Other duties as directed.

Qualifications & Experience:

• Territory qualification with Business or commerce background.
• Minimum 2-4 years’ experience in similar role, preferably within Pharmaceuticals/Food Industries.
• Previous experience with ERP/MRP systems, including Pronto, SAP, or equivalent platforms, is essential.
• Take initiative, team-player and self-sufficient.
• Well-developed analysis and critical thinking approach to all tasks.
• Excellent communication skills (both written and verbal) with all levels of stakeholders.
• Keep positive attitude, be strong, cooperative, honest and actively seek opportunities for improvement.
• Actively observe operation activities, report any wrong doings or potential risks to business to management in a timely manner.

Skills & Attributes:

• Demonstrated a capacity to establish strong and collaborative relationships with both internal and external stakeholders.
• Production system knowledge.
• Exceptional communication skills in both written and verbal.