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**Job Function: **
Supply Chain Planning
**Job Sub Function: **
Integrated Business Planning
Job Category:
Professional
All Job Posting Locations:
Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan
Job Description:
The Consumable Planning Specialist — Japan is responsible for demand and inventory planning for the consumable portfolio in Japan, including capital systems, procedure-driven consumables, instruments, and service/spare parts. Based in Japan, this role partners closely with Commercial (Hospital Sales, Clinical Affairs, Service Ops, Distributor Services), Supply Planning, Manufacturing, and Finance to create accurate, executable demand plans that support installations, procedures, clinical adoption, and high service availability. The specialist contributes to the IBP / S&OP process, supports launch readiness, and drives improvements in forecast accuracy, installed-base analytics and spare-parts availability.
**The role’s scope of responsibilities include: **
Generate and maintain statistical and consensus demand forecasts for consumable SKUs.
Consolidate commercial inputs (sales orders, distributor forecasts, procedure schedules, promotions, tenders) into a single demand plan and update regularly.
Support IBP / S&OP activities: prepare demand packs, run local demand reviews, document assumptions and follow up on actions.
Forecast consumption tied to installed-base and procedure volumes; collaborate with Service Ops and Clinical teams to model usage rates and adoption curves.
Manage inventory-related risks: expiry, lot traceability, consignment balances and allocation for constrained SKUs.
Support launch planning: create demand scenarios, validate initial stocking needs, coordinate staging and allocations with supply.
Perform root-cause analysis on forecast variance and implement corrective actions to reduce MAPE and bias.
Produce regular and ad-hoc reporting (forecast vs. actual, inventory days, service risk, distributor fill rates) and present insights to stakeholders.
Improve planning efficiency through data quality initiatives and automation.
Engage with distributors, 3PLs and hospital procurement teams to enhance demand visibility and resolve supply exceptions.
Ensure planning activities comply with regulatory, quality and product safety requirements.
< Major Duties & Responsibilities >
Approximate Percentage of Time
Demand forecasting & IBP / S&OP facilitation : 40%
Launch planning & scenario analysis: 20%
Stakeholder engagement (Commercial, Clinical, Distributors):20%
Launch planning and scenario analysis:10%
Reporting, analytics and system enhancements:10%
Required Qualifications
Required Minimum Education: Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain, Business, Engineering, Statistics, Economics or related field.
Required Years of Related Experience: Min 2+ years
Required** Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (Uncompromised requirements for the role)**:
Experience in demand planning, supply chain planning, or IBP —experience with hospital consumables or procedure-driven products strongly preferred.
Hands-on skills with forecasting/statistical tools and advanced Excel; practical experience with planning systems (SAP IBP, Kinaxis, Oracle Demantra or equivalent) desirable.
Strong analytical capability with focus on installed-base modelling, spare-parts forecasting and launch scenario development.
Excellent stakeholder management, communication and influencing skills — ability to engage clinical, commercial and service leadership.
Fluent in Japanese and English (verbal and written) — required for cross-functional and regional coordination.
Eligible to live and work in Japan.
Preferred Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
Experience in healthcare, FMCG or related categories.
Experience integrating distributor and hospital demand signals in Japan.
Familiarity with scripting or automation for demand analytics and reporting.
＜For Internal Applicants＞
Based on your experience and interview evaluation, the position title and level may vary.
If you are Japan employee, please read “Internal Application Guideline” in Ask GS. Especially if you are less than 18 months in your current role, you are required to obtain application approval from your current manager as well as your respective BUHR. If you are Japan’s employee, you are not able to apply for multiple positions at once.
For Employee Referral Program (ERP), please read and understand the details of the “Internal Referral Overview” on the Ask GS and you have made a compliant referral.
**Required Skills: **
Preferred Skills:
Analytical Reasoning, Business Agility, Business Behavior, Business Data Analysis, Business Process Management (BPM), Coaching, Continuous Improvement, Data Gathering and Analysis, Data Savvy, Demand Planning, Facilitation, Industry Analysis, Manufacturing Flow Management, Market Research, Problem Solving, Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP), Strategic Analysis, Supply Planning