Senior Director Operations Jobs in Meridian, MS (NOW HIRING)

The Director, Sales, Inventory & Operations Planning (SIOP) will lead Edelbrock Group's end-to-end planning process and serve as the primary link between commercial demand, manufacturing and supplier capacity, inventory investment, distribution requirements, and financial objectives.

This highly visible leader will own the design, execution, and continuous improvement of the SIOP process. The role will partner closely with Sales, Product Management, Finance, Procurement, Manufacturing, Distribution, and Customer Service to develop one integrated operating plan that supports revenue growth, customer service, margin performance, working-capital efficiency, and operational execution.

Responsibilities:

Lead the SIOP Process

• Own, lead, and continuously improve the company's monthly Sales, Inventory & Operations Planning process.
• Establish and maintain a structured SIOP cadence, including demand review, supply review, inventory and capacity review, financial reconciliation, pre-SIOP, and executive SIOP meetings.
• Develop and maintain an 18-month rolling integrated operating plan aligned with the annual operating plan, commercial priorities, inventory strategy, manufacturing capabilities, supplier constraints, and financial objectives.
• Facilitate cross-functional planning meetings and ensure decisions, assumptions, risks, actions, and accountability are documented and tracked to closure.
• Provide senior management and executive leadership with clear recommendations, scenario analysis, trade-offs, risks, and required business decisions.
• Build a culture of fact-based planning, cross-functional accountability, disciplined execution, and continuous improvement.

Drive Demand, Supply & Capacity Alignment

• Partner with Sales, Marketing, Product Management, and Finance to develop an unbiased and commercially validated demand plan by product family, channel, customer segment, and relevant planning hierarchy.
• Incorporate market trends, promotions, pricing actions, customer opportunities, new product launches, program changes, seasonality, and product lifecycle events into demand forecasts.
• Translate demand plans into supply, manufacturing, procurement, capacity, and distribution requirements.
• Partner with manufacturing leaders to evaluate labor, equipment, production capacity, tooling, maintenance, material availability, and schedule constraints.
• Work with Procurement and suppliers to understand lead times, capacity, minimum order quantities, material availability, supply risks, and mitigation actions.
• Identify supply-demand gaps early and develop practical mitigation plans, including production prioritization, overtime, supplier alternatives, inventory prebuilds, product substitutions, allocation strategies, or demand-shaping actions.
• Ensure master production schedules, material plans, and replenishment plans support customer commitments, service levels, revenue targets, inventory goals, and manufacturing efficiency.

Optimize Inventory & Service Performance

• Lead inventory-planning strategy across manufactured, sourced, and distributed product lines.
• Balance customer availability, service levels, inventory turns, cash flow, margin, lead time, and obsolescence risk.
• Develop inventory policies by product segment, demand variability, supplier/manufacturing lead time, product lifecycle stage, customer importance, and service promise.
• Improve safety-stock strategy, replenishment parameters, reorder points, lead-time assumptions, and inventory deployment across the distribution network.
• Lead cross-functional initiatives to reduce excess, obsolete, and slow-moving inventory while protecting priority customer service levels.
• Develop action plans to improve fill rate, reduce backorders, improve inventory health, and reduce premium freight and expediting costs.
• Establish appropriate planning methods for high-volume products, seasonal demand, long-tail SKUs, intermittent demand, new products, supersessions, and product phase-outs.

Support Product & Portfolio Planning

• Integrate new-product introductions, product extensions, engineering changes, product substitutions, supersessions, and end-of-life planning into the SIOP process.
• Partner with Product Management, Engineering, Quality, Procurement, and Operations to ensure inventory, material, manufacturing, packaging, master-data, and distribution readiness for product launches and transitions.
• Identify product portfolio complexity, low-velocity inventory risk, and service challenges that affect working capital, manufacturing efficiency, supplier performance, and customer service.
• Support product rationalization, lifecycle planning, and inventory disposition decisions with data-driven analysis and financial recommendations.

Manage Performance, Systems & Continuous Improvement

• Develop and maintain SIOP performance reporting, dashboards, scorecards, and executive presentations.
• Track and improve KPIs including forecast accuracy, forecast bias, fill rate, backorders, on-time delivery, inventory turns, days of inventory on hand, excess and obsolete inventory, schedule attainment, supplier performance, capacity utilization, and working-capital performance.
• Partner with Finance to reconcile the operating plan with revenue, gross margin, operating expense, inventory, working-capital, and cash-flow targets.
• Ensure planning data, assumptions, product hierarchies, lead times, bills of material, routings, inventory parameters, and ERP/MRP master data are accurate and appropriately governed.
• Lead planning-system, reporting, analytics, automation, and process-improvement initiatives.
• Build, coach, and develop planning talent, including demand planning, supply planning, inventory planning, production planning, and scheduling resources as applicable.
• Champion Lean, continuous improvement, root-cause analysis, and standard work across the planning organization.

Qualifications & Experience:

• Pragmatic, collaborative, and decisive leadership style with the ability to influence senior cross-functional stakeholders, challenge assumptions constructively, and drive alignment and action without direct authority.
• Strong understanding of demand planning, supply planning, inventory optimization, master scheduling, MRP, capacity planning, production planning, supplier planning, and product lifecycle management.
• Demonstrated ability to improve customer service and inventory productivity simultaneously.
• Strong business and financial acumen, including the ability to connect planning decisions to revenue, gross margin, operating costs, working capital, and cash flow.
• Advanced analytical capability, including strong proficiency in Excel and Power BI or similar reporting tools, plus experience with ERP/MRP and planning platforms such as Oracle, SAP, Infor, Kinaxis, o9, Blue Yonder, Anaplan, Logility, ToolsGroup, or equivalent systems.
• Excellent written, verbal, presentation, facilitation, and executive-communication skills.
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, growth-oriented environment with evolving processes, competing priorities, and a broad product portfolio.

Minimum Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain Management, Operations, Industrial Engineering, Business, Finance, or a related discipline.
• 10+ years of progressive experience in supply chain, operations, demand planning, supply planning, inventory planning, materials management, production planning, or manufacturing operations.
• 5+ years of leadership experience, including direct management, team development, or leadership of complex cross-functional planning processes.
• Demonstrated ownership of an SIOP, S&OP, or integrated business planning process in a manufacturing environment.
• Experience in a business that manufactures and sources finished goods and distributes products through one or more distribution centers, channels, or customer segments.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in automotive aftermarket, automotive supply, service parts, industrial distribution, consumer durables, consumer products, appliances, heavy-duty equipment, or a similar high-SKU manufacturing/distribution environment.
• Experience supporting a portfolio that includes manufactured products, purchased finished goods, sourced components, and long-tail or intermittent-demand SKUs, including product supersessions, engineering changes, new-product launches, phase-ins/phase-outs, and obsolete-inventory risk.
• APICS/ASCM CPIM, CSCP, or CLTD certification and/or Lean, Six Sigma, Kaizen, or operational-excellence certification.
• Experience building or materially improving an SIOP/S&OP process rather than only participating in an established process.
• MBA, master's degree, or advanced coursework in Supply Chain, Operations, Engineering, Finance, or Business Administration.

Key Performance Indicators:

Success in this role will be measured through improvement in:

• Forecast accuracy and forecast bias; customer fill rate, on-time delivery, backorder levels, and lost-sales exposure.
• Inventory turns, days of inventory on hand, inventory-to-sales ratio, and excess/obsolete inventory.
• Schedule attainment, production-plan adherence, supplier reliability, capacity utilization, premium freight, expedites, and material shortages.
• Revenue-plan attainment, gross-margin protection, working-capital performance, and cash conversion.
• SIOP cadence adherence, action-item closure, decision quality, and cross-functional adoption.

Physical Requirements:

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those associates encounter while performing the essential functions of this job in an office environment. The associate will be required to sit and use hands to type. The associate could also be required to stand for prolonged periods of time; use hands to finger, handle, or feel; reach with hands and arms; and talk or hear.