Production Planner

Craigavon

Vickerstock are working in partnership with a well-established and highly regarded food manufacturing business in Northern Ireland to recruit a Production Planner for their site in Craigavon.

This is a key role within the operations function, offering the opportunity to take ownership of production planning across multiple manufacturing lines in a fast-paced, short shelf-life environment. The successful candidate will play a critical part in ensuring customer demand is met efficiently, safely and in line with exacting quality standards.

What's on offer

• Circa £35k, reflective of experience
• A stable, permanent role within a growing and well-invested food manufacturing business
• The opportunity to work in a collaborative, hands-on operations environment
• Long-term career development within supply chain and operations

Your day to day:

Reporting to the Supply Chain / Operations Manager, the Production Planner will be responsible for translating customer demand into robust, achievable production schedules while balancing capacity, materials and labour.

• Developing and maintaining daily, weekly and monthly production plans across manufacturing lines
• Converting forecasts and sales orders into efficient, realistic production schedules
• Working closely with Production, Technical, Quality, Engineering and Procurement teams to ensure plan adherence
• Monitoring raw material and packaging availability and proactively highlighting risks or shortages
• Adjusting plans to manage equipment downtime, labour constraints or changes in demand
• Ensuring all production plans align with food safety, hygiene, allergen and quality requirements
• Tracking and reporting KPIs such as OTIF, waste and schedule adherence
• Supporting continuous improvement initiatives to optimise capacity, reduce waste and improve efficiency
• Maintaining accurate planning data within ERP / MRP systems
• Scheduling NPD and sample runs within the weekly plan
• Communicating plans clearly to production teams and senior stakeholders

Your essential ingredients

• Experience in a production planning or scheduling role within food manufacturing (dessert or bakery experience highly advantageous)
• Strong understanding of production processes and capacity planning
• Experience working with ERP / MRP systems and strong Excel capability
• Excellent organisational and problem-solving skills
• Strong communicator with the ability to influence cross-functionally
• Comfortable working in a fast-moving, short shelf-life manufacturing environment

Even better if you have this, but not a deal breaker:

• Experience within dessert, bakery, chilled or frozen food manufacturing
• Knowledge of food safety standards such as BRC, HACCP and major retailer requirements
• Relevant supply chain or planning qualifications (APICS, CIPS or similar)
• Experience working with chilled, frozen or ambient food products.

If you are a Production Planner looking for your next move within food manufacturing or keen to step into a business where planning genuinely makes a difference, I would be keen to have a confidential conversation.

Interested in finding out more?
Contact Paul Muir to discuss this opportunity in complete confidence on T: 028 9031 3720, or submit an updated CV via the link on the page.

By applying for this role, you accept the terms of processing. Please find our privacy policy on our website.
As an experienced specialist recruiter within Food Manufacturing/FMCG with over 7 years' experience, I recruit Production & Operations professionals at all levels across Northern Ireland.

If this role isn't quite right for you, but you work within Food Production or Operations in Northern Ireland, please feel free to share your CV for future consideration (you can also connect with me on LinkedIn).