Scheduler Jobs

The Mill Scheduler is responsible for planning containerboard production at PCA paper mills to meet internal and external customer demand, while maintaining a level of operational cost control. The Scheduling team is responsible for planning 4.9 million tons of containerboard production at the PCA paper mills. Individual responsibilities are split to ensure that adequate future production is allotted to each mill to allow for transportation and inventory planning. We are also responsible for operational cost control – grade mix, trim efficiency, and transportation mode selection.

Principle Accountabilities:

• Select the mode of transportation that is most cost effective but can still meet the customer’s timing, to help manage inventory levels.
• Know and follow policies and procedures of the company, share information that would benefit other members of the team and find ways to improve the delivery of service to our customers.
• Once, the reel is trimmed and the mode is selected, optimize the loaded weights to minimize the transportation costs to PCA.
• Schedule production to the machines with orders booked, relying on input from the mill and containerboard sales to sequence correctly to maintain inventory levels at the box plants.
• Optimize the paper machine’s width by combining orders to run across the reel (trimming).
• Strive to continually strengthen PCA’s business philosophy of meeting needs and exceeding expectation for customers specifically supporting PCA’s Commitment to Service which involves doing what’s right for our customers, focusing on strategies that add value and support growth, and keeping the promises that we make.

Decision Making:

Decision making is a core function of the mill scheduler role. Daily decisions include what orders to pair together, how to ship an order and the weight of each load, etc. Other decisions include prioritizing which customers must run first, when to insert into production schedules, and when to move orders between paper mills, etc. All decisions have a financial impact and multiple tradeoffs, with a wide range of outcomes. This scheduler must be able to make decisions quickly, confidently, and know when to involve other parties. Significant training and guidance will be provided on why each decision was made vs the other possible outcomes.

Interactions:

Developing and maintaining good relationships with internal and external stakeholders is important to succeed in this role. Internal stakeholders in Containerboard Sales (representing the customer) provide the necessary feedback to prioritize orders, delivery dates, etc. External stakeholders in Transportation and at the Paper Mills are important to determine shipping and production constraints. The mill scheduler represents the mill in customer to mill communications and the scheduler represents the customer in mill to customer communications.

Position Requirements:

• Strong problem-solving skills.
• Work additional hours until the mill’s schedule is covered (can be in excess of 40 hours/week) and available outside of standard business hours when necessary.
• Previous work experience as a member of a team, or a strong understanding of the importance of open communication and information sharing between team members.
• Limited travel (<5%).
• Bachelor’s degree required.
• Customer focused.
• Experience using Microsoft Office applications including Excel, Word, and Outlook
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to make complex decisions based on all available inputs (at the time).

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