Buyer / Planner

**Buyer / Planner** **Location**:Lower Dicker, Hailsham, BN27 4EL **Salary**:Competitive, DOE **Contract**:Full time, Permanent **We are Vacgen and we are recruiting.** Since 1964, we have been the name on everyone’s lips when they think about high quality ultra-high vacuum products and services. We manufactured the very first UHV valve and we head some of the most advanced vacuum research, coupling this with over 50 years excelling in the research and scientific industry we have incredible grounding in the needs of our customers. The health, safety and wellbeing of our staff is our top priority and as such we have implemented the very latest government COVID-19 guidelines to keep our workforce safe. These include strict social distancing, the distribution of face masks and shields,reduced face to face contact and managing periods of time employees spend together. We are now recruiting for a **Buyer / Planner** to join us on a permanent basis and to work as part of a team responsible for ensuring that materials are available, and to support the production schedule by forward planning and purchasing. You will be production planning, scheduling and forecasting activities across all products. **As our Buyer / Planer you will be responsible for**: - Maximising our shipping performance and achieving our on-time delivery goals and exceeding our customers’ expectations. - Maintaining the production schedule ensuring constraints and operation timelines are aligned with delivery expectation. - Purchasing materials and miscellaneous items and sourcing and qualifying suppliers and contributing to cost reduction activities. - Co-ordinate Order Input Control Process - Liaise with Sales on delivery dates, agree delivery dates prior to Order Input - Creating an accurate, up to date lead time for each of the manufacturing processes, together with a system for communicating this to the SOP and sales teams. - Take Ownership of, and plan all products through Manufacturing Cells - Maximise use of the order management system and ensure visibility of all orders - Identify critical items and issues, and resolve them - Investigate available capacity vs. likely load - Produce and publish metrics as required - Ensure materials are purchased at the most competitive price. - Monitor status of open purchase orders to ensure on time delivery of all materials. - Expedite or defer orders as required based on schedule/inventory changes. - Processing tasks using planning tools e.g. MRP (Microsoft Dynamics AX) - Creating Production Works orders and upcoming material requisitions **Essential Skills & Experience**: - Extensive production planning and purchasing experience within an engineering manufacturing environment - Excellent communication and negotiation skills are essential - The ability to make decisions within guidelines and take responsibility for these is essential - The ability to meet time frames and work under pressure is important - Numerate and IT literate with a good working knowledge of Excel and other Microsoft packages in order to compile and analyse performance statistics and deliver reports - Strong experience and knowledge MRP/ERP tools and systems - Methodical and organised with a high level of attention to detail - Self-motivated, enthusiastic and target focussed **Desirable Skills & Experience**: - 5+ years Buying/Production Planning system experience - Microsoft Dynamics AX experience is an advantage - Engineering competence in relation to machining and assembly and a suitable level of product and organisational familiarisation is a distinct advantage - Previous exposure working in a manufacturing and assembly organisation - Good analytical and numeracy skills - Strong systems and excel knowledge **If you feel you have the necessary skills and experience to be successful in this role click on "APPLY" today, forwarding an up to date copy of your CV for consideration in the first instance.** No agencies please.