Senior Supply Demand Planner – Spares & FRUs - Supply Chain Operations
hackajobHouston (TX)
Senior Supply Demand Planner – Spares & FRUs - Supply Chain Operations
Posted today
hackajobHouston (TX)
SENIORITY
Manager
About the role
Senior Supply Demand Planner The Senior Supply Demand Planner owns end-to-end supply and demand planning for service spares, Field Replaceable Units (FRUs), and New Product Introductions (NPIs). The role ensures service readiness, supply continuity, and optimal inventory across the product lifecycle. This senior individual contributor operates with a high degree of autonomy and partners across Service, Engineering, NPI, Procurement, Manufacturing, Logistics, Repair, Finance, and Product teams to manage risk, optimize inventory, and support customer service commitments.
Key Responsibilities: Analytics & Business Management
- Develop dashboards and planning models for supply, demand, and inventory.
- Track service levels, shortages, forecast performance, and inventory health.
- Perform root-cause analysis on planning and service gaps.
- Compare NPI assumptions to actual field performance.
- Develop supply-demand scenarios for business and financial planning.
- Drive improvements in planning tools, data, and processes. Cross-Functional Leadership
- Serve as the planning subject matter expert for spares, FRUs, and NPI.
- Lead supply-demand and launch-readiness reviews.
- Communicate risks, tradeoffs, and recommendations to leadership.
- Influence cross-functional decisions without direct authority.
- Drive resolution of complex supply-chain issues.
- Mentor planners and establish planning best practices. NPI & Launch Planning
- Own spares and FRU planning for new product introductions.
- Develop initial demand forecasts using installed base, reliability, and failure-rate assumptions.
- Define launch stocking strategies and inventory requirements.
- Ensure parts readiness ahead of product launch and customer deployment.
- Identify critical FRUs, long-lead items, and supply risks.
- Build scenarios for demand, failure rates, lead times, and service levels.
- Track NPI readiness and drive mitigation for gaps.
- Transition planning from assumptions to actual field demand.
- Lead post-launch reviews and incorporate lessons learned. Demand Planning
- Own demand forecasts for assigned spares and FRU portfolios.
- Incorporate installed base, consumption, reliability, returns, and lifecycle data.
- Forecast new products with limited or no historical demand.
- Identify demand trends, forecast bias, and abnormal usage.
- Adjust plans based on field performance and reliability changes.
- Develop scenarios to support planning decisions. Supply & Inventory Planning
- Develop supply plans to meet service and inventory objectives.
- Set and optimize safety stock and inventory targets.
- Identify shortages, excess, and supply-demand imbalances.
- Lead mitigation for constrained or high-risk materials.
- Optimize inventory across global service locations.
- Partner with suppliers and Procurement on capacity and lead-time risks.
- Reduce excess and obsolete inventory while protecting service levels. Lifecycle Management
- Manage planning across NPI, ramp, sustaining, transition, and end-of-life.
- Monitor early-life demand and adjust inventory strategies.
- Manage FRU substitutions, supersessions, and engineering changes.
- Minimize stranded inventory during product transitions.
- Develop end-of-life and last-time-buy plans.
- Align inventory with warranty and service obligations. Repair & Reverse Supply Chain
- Incorporate repair yields, turnaround times, and capacity into supply plans.
- Balance new-buy, repair, refurbishment, and recovered inventory.
- Monitor return and RMA trends for emerging risks.
- Identify repair-loop constraints and improvement opportunities.
- Support repair-versus-buy decisions.
Required Qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain, Operations, Engineering, Business, Finance, Analytics, or related field.
- 5+ years of experience in supply planning, demand planning, inventory management, NPI, or service-parts planning.
- Experience supporting new product introductions.
- Strong knowledge of forecasting, inventory optimization, and supply planning.
- Experience with spares, FRUs, repairables, or intermittent-demand inventory preferred.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
- Advanced Excel and planning-system experience.
- Strong written, verbal, and executive communication skills.
- Proven ability to influence and drive cross-functional decisions.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience in hardware, cloud infrastructure, data center, networking, semiconductor, or technology environments.
- Experience with global service-parts and depot networks.
- Knowledge of intermittent-demand and multi-echelon inventory planning.
- Experience with repair loops, RMAs, and reverse logistics.
- Experience with product transitions and end-of-life planning.
- Familiarity with SQL, Python, or BI tools.
- APICS/ASCM certification preferred. Measures of Success
- NPI spares and FRU readiness.
- Service-level and parts-availability performance.
- Reduced shortages and backorders.
- Improved forecast quality.
- Optimized inventory investment.
- Reduced excess and obsolete inventory.
- Effective product transitions and end-of-life planning.
- Early identification and mitigation of supply risks.
- Strong cross-functional alignment and execution.
Before you apply
Applying takes about a minute. These four things decide how fast it moves after that.
Your profile is current
It's what we read first. Occupations, seniority and locations matter more than a long history.
Two examples you can talk through
Not a portfolio — just two pieces of work where you can explain the decisions and what you'd change.
A number in mind
What you're on now and what would make you move. We negotiate better when we know both.
Your notice period
Employers plan around it, and it's the question that stalls offers most often.
Once you apply, someone reads it and calls you before anything reaches the employer — usually within two working days.