Master Scheduler

Description

ABOUT THE COMPANY: For more than 70 years, JOST has been shaping the future of transportation with innovation, safety, and customer focus at its core. Founded in 1952 in Germany with the development of the first cast-steel fifth wheel, JOST has grown into a global leader supplying the commercial vehicle and agricultural industries with trusted, high-quality solutions.

With its portfolio of leading brands — JOST, ROCKINGER, TRIDEC, Quicke, and Hyva — the company today is a Tier 1 supplier recognized worldwide for excellence in fifth wheels, landing gear, towing hitches, steering systems, front loaders, and hydraulic solutions. The 2025 acquisition of Hyva marked a significant milestone, expanding JOST’s reach into hydraulic cylinders, tippers and components for transport and waste handling, and strengthening its position across both On-Highway and Off-Highway applications.

Headquartered in Germany with operations on five continents, JOST continues to drive industry standards through engineering expertise, a commitment to quality, and strong partnerships with OEMs and fleets around the world.

POSITION OVERVIEW: The Master Scheduler owns the master production planning process for assigned manufacturing and assembly operations. The position translates forecasts, customer orders, inventory targets, material availability, equipment capacity, and labor constraints into an achievable master production schedule across multiple sites. The Master Planner serves as the primary planning link among Sales, Operations, Materials, Logistics, Engineering, and Finance, manages planning exceptions, maintains routing and planning master data, and drives schedule stability, customer service, inventory performance, and continuous improvement.

This position reports to the Plant Manager. It is solely accountable for the fulfillment of all assigned duties and has authority delegated commensurate with assigned responsibilities.

AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY: Include, but are not limited to:

Master Production Planning & Scheduling

• Own, create, and continuously maintain the master production schedule based on customer orders, forecasts, backlog, capacity, and target inventory levels to support complete and on-time shipment.
• Develop integrated production plans for multiple manufacturing and assembly sites, balancing demand, available capacity, labor, equipment, materials, and inventory objectives.
• Review the master schedule daily and manage exceptions caused by changes in customer demand, raw-material availability, supplier lead times, equipment downtime, staffing constraints, quality issues, or other operational disruptions.
• Establish planning time fences, scheduling priorities, and escalation protocols that improve schedule stability while maintaining appropriate responsiveness to customer needs.
• Publish daily and weekly production schedules and provide a rolling monthly production forecast to operations and leadership.
• Monitor schedule attainment, past-due orders, capacity utilization, inventory exposure, and customer-service risks; communicate recovery plans and required decisions.

Cross-Functional Planning Leadership

• Serve as the primary planning contact for Sales, Manufacturing, Materials, Logistics, Engineering, Quality, and Finance.
• Lead cross-functional planning reviews to identify demand and capacity gaps, resolve constraints, align priorities, and develop executable recovery or catch-up plans.
• Coordinate new-product and new-part introductions, engineering changes, expedited customer orders, and supplier lead-time impacts to ensure timely setup and execution.
• Participate in daily production and scheduling meetings, clearly communicating priorities, risks, changes, and required actions.
• Provide planning assumptions, capacity outlooks, inventory projections, and operational input to support the monthly SI&OP process.
• Lead within the planning department.

Materials, Inventory & Flow Management

• Partner with purchasing and materials teams to resolve shortages, material availability issues, inventory discrepancies, and other constraints that could affect execution of the master schedule.
• Direct the management of overbuild, excess, obsolete, and slow-moving inventory, including recommending rework, consumption, transfer, or disposition plans.
• Monitor work-in-process inventory, support cycle counting activities, and assist with resolution of transactional or physical inventory variances.
• Plan and support the annual physical inventory and related production or material-control activities.
• Apply Lean Manufacturing principles, including production leveling, pull systems, Kanban, flow, and inventory optimization.

Systems, Master Data & Process Excellence

• Act as the subject-matter expert for SAP Production Planning (PP) and provide training, coaching, and coordination support to associates, supervisors, and operations leaders for scheduling activities at the cell level.
• Create and maintain accurate production routings, planning parameters, and relevant master data in SAP and BRAIN.
• Validate planning data and system outputs, identify data-quality issues, and coordinate corrective actions with appropriate process owners.
• Use advanced Excel, ERP/MRP reporting, and database-query tools to analyze demand, capacity, schedule performance, inventory, and planning exceptions.
• Standardize planning processes, documentation, metrics, and work practices across supported facilities; lead continuous-improvement initiatives that improve schedule adherence, inventory performance, and customer service.
• Assist with any assigned 5S & LEAN housekeeping initiatives.
• Any additional responsibilities that have not been specifically stated, but which may be assigned and those that are logically and properly inherent to this position.

PERFORMANCE INDICATORS:

• On-time delivery and customer service performance
• Master schedule attainment and production plan adherence
• Past-due order reduction and recovery-plan effectiveness
• Inventory health, including excess, obsolete, slow-moving, and work-in-process inventory
• Forecast accuracy and bias, where applicable
• Capacity-plan accuracy and constraint visibility
• Master-data accuracy and planning-system discipline
• Cross-functional execution of actions and escalations

Requirements

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE:

• Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain Management, Business, Operations, Engineering, or a related field; an associate degree with commensurate experience may be considered.
• Five or more years of progressive production planning, master scheduling, materials, or supply-chain experience in a manufacturing environment.

REQUIRED SKILLS:

Required

• Ability to use AI to optimize scheduling
• Strong SAP experience with a focus on Production Planning (PP) and practical knowledge of MRP concepts and execution.
• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel and working proficiency with the Microsoft Office Suite.
• Solid understanding of relational databases, data structures, and methods for querying and analyzing planning data.
• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional planning activities, influence without direct authority, and drive timely decisions.
• Excellent organization, prioritization, problem-solving, interpersonal, and written and oral communication skills.
• High attention to detail, sound critical thinking, and the ability to work independently while contributing to a highly effective team.
• Past experience in a high mix environment.
• Completion of Information Security Training required.
• Ability to gain knowledge of company products. Comply with quality, environmental, safety and JOST company policies and procedures.

Preferred

• APICS/ASCM or ISM membership or certification.
• Experience with multi-site production planning and monthly SI&OP processes.
• Experience applying Lean Manufacturing concepts, particularly production leveling and Kanban.
• Experience with BRAIN or comparable manufacturing planning and execution systems.

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS:

• The position operates approximately 85% in an office setting and 15% on the production floor.
• Travel is expected to be less than 5% and is primarily local during the business day, although occasional out-of-area travel may be required.

JOST International participates in E-Verify and is an Equal Opportunity Employer