Senior Inventory Planner - Parts Operations

Role Summary

The Senior Inventory Planner is responsible for optimizing parts inventory to ensure availability while minimizing excess inventory.

This includes forecasting, demand planning, procurement, and distribution of service parts for Subaru of America (SOA).

The role involves creating purchase and transfer orders, monitoring supplier performance, and expediting parts in short supply.

Additionally, the Senior Parts Inventory Planner will collaborate closely with SBR, SIA, the RDC Network, and other internal teams to maintain optimal inventory levels, reduce backorders, and limit excess inventory.

This position also oversees maintaining and refining the department's catalog of standard operating procedures (SOPs) aimed at enhancing process efficiency.

The Senior Planner is responsible for onboarding new planners and cross-functional team members.

This role also analyzes large amounts of planning data in conjunction with key strategic goals, establishing correlations for trends that will enhance planning throughout the entire supply chain.

This includes monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs), analyzing inventory trends, and providing regular reports and recommendations to planning and upper-level management teams in order to improve forecast accuracy.

Primary Responsibilities


* Systematically reviews daily inventory of assigned Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) within the planning system work queue.

Focuses on minimizing backorders, avoiding projected stock-outs, optimizing purchase orders, expediting shipments, and allocating inventory efficiently across the network.

Utilizes historical demand data and real-time analytics to inform decisions on distribution across Regional Distribution Centers (RDCs), ensuring effective stock management and alignment with supply chain requirements.


* Applies advanced statistical forecasting techniques to generate accurate demand predictions.

Evaluates and integrates the impact of new product launches and market trends into forecast models.

Works toward consistently achieving high forecast accuracy and leverages analytics to adjust supply plans and ensure optimal stock levels across distribution channels.


* Collaborates closely with internal and external stakeholders, including SBR and SIA, as well as other relevant internal departments.

Analyzes supply chain challenges to provide precise Estimated Time of Arrivals (ETAs) and resolve parts supply issues.

Focuses on optimizing customer service through data-driven communication and proactive issue resolution.

Works with RDC teams to analyze and prioritize hot shipments and transfers, ensuring rapid response to urgent inventory demands.


* Leads the continuous improvement of the department's catalog of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) through data-driven analysis.

Analyzes existing workflows and identifies opportunities for streamlining processes to increase operational efficiency.

Regularly updates and refines SOPs to reflect best pra...