Senior Manager, Demand Analytics and Continuous Improvement

Aspire Bakeries is a North American baking company with a leadership position in specialty frozen baked goods. Formed from leading bakery companies, its innovative food portfolio includes breads, artisan breads, buns, cookies, donuts, muffins and pastries from beloved brands like La Brea Bakery®, Otis Spunkmeyer®, and Oakrun Farm Bakery®. With 14 bakeries in North America, we are committed to driving innovation, predicting upcoming consumer trends and flavors, and exceeding our customers’ expectations. Aspire Bakeries champions the values of Integrity, Ownership, Customer Focus, Creativity and Care to help us deliver on People Safety, Food Safety, Quality and Collaboration.

The Senior Manager of Demand Analytics and Continuous Improvement will be charged with driving the analytical processes for the demand planning team to improve forecast quality and reliability.

This position will drive continuous improvement through the creation of advanced analytical reporting, statistical forecast model tuning, and demand planning specific projects that leverage business metrics, KPI’s, and external benchmarks.

Responsibilities:

Reporting and Analysis

• Generate ad hoc/custom reports based on business needs.

• Develop and publish exception reports to prioritize forecast review.
• Review forecast metrics, analyze root cause of forecast error, and provide recommended actions to improve forecast accuracy and bias.
• Perform comparison analysis of actual performance against customer projected data, statistical forecast, and revised forecasts.
• Utilize analytical reporting and tools to identify areas of opportunity and process improvement.

• Perform both product and customer segmentation analysis to determine appropriate focus areas.

Collaboration

• Collect past/future demand inputs (distribution gains/losses, price changes, new/discontinued products, promotion plans, etc.) from Sales and Marketing and forecast/model their impacts on demand.
• Work closely with Sales to ensure that key Customer Plans are incorporated into the Demand Plan
• Provide input to the Supply Planning organization in developing inventory strategies on existing items, new products, and product phase-outs.
• Closely coordinate and communicate customer plans with Supply Planning
• Collaborate on abnormal and unconsumed demand ensuring short term changes to the Demand Plan are agreed to and executed.

Demand Planning

• Establish best practices for reviewing and refining statistical baseline forecast.
• Generate and maintain operational forecast at multiple levels of aggregation for multiple time horizons as part of the demand planning function.
• Coordinate cross-functional research activities to reconcile significant variances and refine the forecast model to reflect updated Sales and Marketing assumptions.
• Understand the impact of in-sourcing and out-sourcing of products on the demand cycle.
• Make recommended adjustments to the forecast based on changes in demand and market trends.
• Monitor SKU level sales and recommend SKU rationalization initiatives.
• Review and adjust history as needed.
• Ensure product and location forecast mix aligns with latest trends.
• Prepare, report, and communicate forecast measurements to management (forecast accuracy, bias, etc.)

Continuous Improvement

• Identify opportunities to improve Demand Planning, Analysis and Executional processes.
• Conduct system and data validations as required.
• Coordinate system enhancements, implementations, functional testing, and design integrations for inbound/outbound data.
• Lead technical and system-based projects for demand planning as required.

Training and Support

• Evolve and maintain standard operating procedures for demand planning processes and systems.
• Develop and maintain training materials.
• Organize and lead training sessions.
• Assist with troubleshooting issues and identifying potential solutions to resolve.
• Provide forecast system guidance as needed.

Qualifications

• Bachelor Degree required - Preferably in supply chain, operations, or related discipline. Master Degree a plus.
• 5+ years of experience in Demand Planning/Forecasting or related field required.         
• Demonstrated performance in leading Demand Planning continuous improvement activities.
• SAP ECC, SAP BW, AERA, Domo, SAP IBP experience a plus.
• Reporting and Demand Planning software experience required.
• CPG Industry experience a plus.
• Advance analytical experience in MS Office Applications, PowerPivot, and SQL.
• Ability to work both independently and collaboratively in a dynamic analytical environment.
• Certification – CDPP, CPIM, CPF, DDP, APICS, IBP, IBF, LEAN 6 SIGMA a significant plus.
• Extensive spreadsheet experience, strong statistical forecast experience, advance analytical skills and the ability to interpret substantial amounts of data is required.

Aspire Bakeries is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or veteran status.