How to Apply: Interested and qualified? Go to Flora Food Group on www.florafoodgroup.com to apply.
Show Your Planning Chops: From Forecast to Factory Floor
This role lives where demand meets supply. Hiring managers will probe how you turn a forecast into a feasible schedule, keep inventory healthy, and keep stakeholders aligned when things shift.
1. Prove your SAP planning fluency: Be ready to walk through a specific planning cycle in SAP or a similar APS. Mention the transactions or modules you used (like PP/DS) and how you handled exceptions like material shortages or capacity overloads.
2. Quantify your impact: Use numbers to show what you improved: service level, schedule adherence, inventory turns, or forecast accuracy. Even a 5% gain in one metric shows you measure and act.
3. Show your IBP experience: Integrated Business Planning is more than a tool—it's a way of aligning functions. Describe a time you used IBP to resolve a demand-supply conflict or improve a S&OP process.
4. Prepare for scenario questions: Expect questions like 'What do you do if a key material is delayed?' or 'How do you prioritize orders when capacity is tight?' Practice structured answers that show your decision framework.
5. Highlight stakeholder management: Planning is a cross-functional role. Give an example of how you influenced manufacturing, procurement, or sales to achieve a planning goal without direct authority.
6. Know the FMCG context: Understand the pace, seasonality, and short lead times of food or consumer goods. Mention any experience with perishables, promotions, or new product launches.
7. Show continuous improvement: Planning is never static. Talk about a process improvement you initiated—like reducing changeover time or improving data accuracy—and the result.
8. Ask sharp questions: In your interview, ask about the current planning tools, the biggest planning pain points, or how IBP is embedded. It shows you're thinking about the role's real challenges.