Group Company: Jindal Stainless Limited
Office Location: Hisar
Sector: Stainless Steel Industry
Position Description: Production Planning Manager – SMS & Hot Rolling Division (HRD)
To lead integrated production planning, scheduling, and production control activities for the Steel Melting Shop (SMS), Continuous Casting, and Hot Rolling Division (HRD), ensuring optimized resource utilization, synchronized material flow, customer delivery adherence, inventory optimization, and operational excellence through effective coordination with plant leadership, sales teams, and senior management.
Key Responsibilities
Production Planning
- Develop annual, quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily production plans aligned with:
- Sales forecasts
- Order book requirements
- Customer priorities
- Export commitments
- Inventory norms
- Melt shop capacities
- Casting capacities
- Hot rolling capacities
- Translate demand plans into executable manufacturing schedules considering:
- Grade mix optimization
- Heat sequencing
- Slab allocation strategy
- Width campaigns
- Thickness progression
- Rolling campaign optimization
- Product mix balancing
- Order due dates
- Sales priorities
- Establish planning horizons, frozen schedules, and execution windows.
- Balance production plans across:
- Steel Melting Shop (SMS)
- Continuous Casting
- Slab Yard
- Reheating Furnaces
- Hot Rolling Mills
- Finishing and Dispatch
- Ensure synchronization between upstream steelmaking and downstream rolling operations.
SMS Planning & Scheduling
Responsible for production planning and detailed scheduling of:
Steel Melting Shop Operations
Activities include:
- Heat-wise production planning.
- Grade family campaign optimization.
- Alloy consumption optimization.
- Furnace loading optimization.
- Converter utilization planning.
- Secondary metallurgy scheduling.
- Ladle availability management.
- Sequence planning for tundish life maximization.
- Yield optimization initiatives.
- Bottleneck management.
- Resource balancing.
Key focus areas:
- Furnace productivity improvement
- Heat turnaround reduction
- Sequence length optimization
- Alloy cost optimization
- Ladle cycle optimization
- Casting synchronization
- Throughput maximization
- Reduction in waiting losses
- Improvement in schedule adherence
Continuous Casting Planning & Scheduling
Lead planning activities for:
Continuous Casting Operations
Including:
- Caster sequence planning.
- Grade transition optimization.
- Width sequencing.
- Slab dimension planning.
- Campaign scheduling.
- Slab availability planning.
- Tundish sequence optimization.
- Breakout risk minimization.
- Casting speed optimization.
Optimize scheduling considering:
- Product mix
- Width transitions
- Grade compatibility
- Sequence constraints
- Slab inventory norms
- Customer priorities
- Maintenance windows
- Resource availability
Key focus areas
- Sequence efficiency enhancement
- Slab yard inventory optimization
- Caster utilization improvement
- Reduction in slab ageing
- WIP reduction
- Yield maximization
Hot Rolling Division (HRD) Planning & Scheduling
Responsible for production planning and scheduling of:
Hot Rolling Operations
Activities include:
- Rolling campaign planning.
- Reheating furnace scheduling.
- Slab charging optimization.
- Width sequencing.
- Thickness progression planning.
- Grade family scheduling.
- Mill load balancing.
- Coil production planning.
- Throughput optimization.
- Dispatch prioritization.
Optimize production considering:
- Furnace occupancy
- Rolling sequence optimization
- Yield enhancement
- Changeover minimization
- Energy optimization
- Coil inventory management
- Delivery commitments
- Resource constraints
Key focus areas
- Mill utilization improvement
- Reduction in setup losses
- Improved schedule stability
- Enhanced throughput
- Lower WIP inventory
- Increased productivity
- Improved customer responsiveness
Sales & Operations Coordination
Act as the key interface between:
- Senior Plant Management
- Commercial Teams
- Sales & Marketing
- Supply Chain
- Procurement
- Production Departments
- Dispatch Teams
Responsibilities include:
- Align production plans with sales commitments.
- Conduct demand-supply balancing exercises.
- Prioritize strategic customer orders.
- Coordinate export production requirements.
- Support monthly S&OP reviews.
- Participate in management review meetings.
- Drive consensus planning across functions.
- Ensure effective communication of production constraints.
SAP PPDS Operations
Act as process owner for production planning activities within SAP PPDS.
Responsibilities include:
- Detailed scheduling.
- Capacity planning.
- Sequence optimization.
- Constraint-based planning.
- Bottleneck management.
- Capacity leveling.
- Order prioritization.
- Production monitoring.
- Schedule adherence tracking.
- Planning master data governance.
Maintain and optimize:
- Resource calendars
- Setup matrices
- Planning parameters
- Production versions
- Scheduling profiles
- Planning horizons
- Capacity models
Production Control
- Monitor plan versus actual production performance.
- Review daily production attainment.
- Analyze deviations and prepare recovery plans.
- Track critical customer orders.
- Expedite delayed heats, slabs, and coils.
- Improve planning accuracy.
- Enhance schedule compliance.
- Support dynamic replanning during disruptions, equipment failures, or maintenance shutdowns.
- Drive adherence to committed production plans.
Inventory Optimization
Manage inventory across:
- Liquid steel planning buffers
- Slab inventory
- Semi-finished inventory
- HR coil inventory
- Export stock
- Dispatch stock
Drive improvements in:
- Inventory turns
- WIP reduction
- Service level enhancement
- Slab ageing reduction
- Coil inventory optimization
Continuous Improvement
Lead initiatives to improve:
- OTIF performance
- Production planning accuracy
- Schedule stability
- Capacity utilization
- Throughput enhancement
- Lead time reduction
- Yield improvement
- Inventory reduction
- Operational efficiency
Apply methodologies including:
- Lean Manufacturing
- Theory of Constraints (TOC)
- Digital Manufacturing
- Advanced Planning Systems
- Integrated Business Planning
- Data Analytics
Educational Qualifications
Bachelor's Degree in:
- Mechanical Engineering
- Metallurgical Engineering
- Industrial Engineering
Preferred:
- MBA – Operations / Supply Chain Management
Required Work Experience
- 10–15 years of experience in stainless steel manufacturing.
- Minimum 7–10 years in a managerial PPC role.
- Experience at AGM level or equivalent leadership position.
Mandatory exposure to:
- Steel Melting Shop (SMS)
- Continuous Casting Operations
- Hot Rolling Division (HRD)
- Integrated stainless steel manufacturing
- Capacity planning and production scheduling
- Sales and operations planning processes
- SAP PPDS environments
Preferred experience in integrated stainless-steel plants.
Technical Skills
Mandatory
- SAP S/4HANA PP
- SAP PP/DS
- Capacity Planning
- Detailed Sequencing
- S&OP
- Production Analytics
- Inventory Optimization
- Supply Planning
- KPI Monitoring
Preferred
- SAP PP
- Power BI
- Advanced Excel
- APS Solutions
- MES Integration
- Digital Manufacturing Platforms
Behavioral Competencies
- Strategic planning capability
- Strong business acumen
- Analytical and problem-solving mindset
- Leadership and team management
- Stakeholder management
- Cross-functional collaboration
- Decision-making capability
- Change management skills
- Negotiation and influencing ability
- Excellent communication and presentation skills
Preferred Industry Background
Integrated stainless steel manufacturers, specialty flat product producers, integrated steel plants, or advanced metals processing organizations operating SAP-based planning and scheduling systems.
