Director - Inventory Planning at United Airlines

Achieving our goals starts with supporting yours. Grow your career, access top-tier health and wellness benefits, build lasting connections with your team and our customers, and travel the world using our extensive route network.

Come join us to create what’s next. Let’s define tomorrow, together.

Reporting to the Managing Director of Supply Chain Inventory Management, the Director - Inventory Planning determines the strategy and provides direction for planning and provisioning of aircraft parts and cabin provisioning in support of the maintenance operation of cabins and fleets. This role is responsible for controlling inventory investment, including OEM versus USM, PMA, and OOPP decisions, and maintaining optimal inventory levels to support line maintenance, airframe overhaul, base maintenance, aircraft modification activities, and cabin provisioning. The Director provides financial oversight of spending and inventory carrying cost.

• Develops and leads the execution of strategy for adequate planning and provisioning of all parts delivered by the Supply Chain team to customers across Tech Ops. Collaborate with stakeholders including Technical Operations, Global Procurement, Marketing, and Inflight.

• Directs the team that coordinates daily strategic adjustments to station inventory levels for rotable and expendable inventory assets to support the operation. Responsible for analysis and establishment of system protection levels, allocation and ROP monitoring, inventory lifecycle management, service level commitments, fleet or schedule variation adjustments, and performance against plan.

• Responsible for deploying a structured approach to develop, implement, and adapt new planning methods and tools. Develop inventory requirements and alternatives and make sound recommendations in support of customer and business plans, providing actionable insight into short- and long-term forecasts for budgetary planning.

• Owns forecasting and planning for onboard cabin items by identifying the demand drivers that best correlate to future demand. Directs monitoring of replenishment orders for cabin provisioning to ensure products arrive at distribution points at the right time to prevent shortages in stations around the world and manage related shipments and budget responsibilities.

• Directs all aspects of the Asset Verification function, including meeting annual regulatory goals, tracking inventory, and ensuring data integrity for scrap transactions.

• Develops and manages the data science and business technology teams that add quantitative sophistication to business decisions by turning data into information and information into insight. Teams build, refine, maintain, and manage operational tools and systems to automate more business processes.

Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent professional experience

• 8+ years of total work experience

• Five (5) years leadership experience in supply chain, aviation, manufacturing, or related industry

• Understanding of supply chain operations, planning, and business management. Self-starter with high degree of initiative and ability to manage deadlines. Strategic thinker with proven track record of implementing innovative solutions. Strong project management skills with ability to handle multiple priorities. Analytical approach to problem solving with attention to detail and sense of urgency.

• Financial and budget/expense management skills.

• Strong people skills and ability to develop internal and external relationships.

• Proven ability to communicate effectively and generate consensus among disparate viewpoints. Strong presentation skills for creating content and presenting to senior leaders.

Preferred

• Master’s Degree

• Supply Chain, Business, Aviation, Manufacturing, or related field

• Experience of managing a team engaged in material requirements planning and supply chain management. Experience in procurement and supplier performance.

• Lean Six Sigma Green Belt or Black Belt

• Formal instruction in Lean Six Sigma/Continuous Improvement methodologies. SAS statistical analysis.

• Demonstrates an understanding of the capabilities and limitations of generative AI tools and effectively leverages them to support research, analysis, content creation, and problem-solving. Apply critical thinking to validate AI-generated outputs while adhering to organizational policies for responsible AI use, data privacy, and security.

The base pay range for this role is $159,790.00 to $207,998.00.

The base salary range/hourly rate listed is dependent on job-related, factors such as experience, education, and skills. This position is also eligible for bonus and/or long-term incentive compensation awards.

You may be eligible for the following competitive benefits: medical, dental, vision, life, accident & disability, parental leave, employee assistance program, commuter, paid holidays, paid time off, 401(k) and flight privileges.

United Airlines is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We recruit, employ, train, compensate, and promote without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, age, veteran status, or any other protected category under applicable law. We provide reasonable accommodations for applicants and employees with disabilities. To request an accommodation, contact [email protected]