Supply Chain & Operations Manager; Planning - Aerospace & Defence

Job Description

Job Role: Strategy & Consulting - Supply Chain & Operations Manager (Planning - Aerospace & Defence)

Location: London

Career Level: Manager (CL7)

Supply Chain and Operations is a major functionally‑oriented consulting practice: we help our clients to identify and quantify the transformational opportunities available in today’s dynamic business environment. Our work spans a range of value‑focused operations assignments from redefining an operating model, reconfiguring national, regional or global supply chain footprint and capabilities through to global sourcing of core categories and creation of supply chain risk frameworks to ensure that potential risks are transparent and the extended supply chain is resilient.

We support major Aerospace & Defence organisations globally in addressing complex operational, supply chain and planning challenges across major platform programmes, MRO/Sustainment, engineering‑led supply chains and mission‑critical operations across the Defence Enterprise, both public (e.g., MODs) and private sector (e.g., OEMs, Defence Primes and suppliers).

• Learn at the forefront of the Aerospace & Defence sector, provide actionable insights to the world's top organisations, helping them address priority issues with strategies and improvements they can execute with speed and at scale.
• Work in a central Planning role with some of the best global companies in the world, responsible for leading workstream delivery to address some of the critical business issues faced today, including:
  • Integrated Business Planning (IBP) – help clients drive alignment across their sales, operations, and finance teams by deploying IBP solutions that improve collaboration, forecasting accuracy, and agility.
  • Supply chain strategy & segmentation (operating model, process design, etc.)
  • Strategic cost reduction (zero‑based supply chain)
  • Inventory optimisation – help clients refine inventory management by balancing service levels, lead times, and inventory costs using advanced planning tools and methodologies like IBP and MRP.
  • Control towers – implementation and optimisation of digital control towers to provide end‑to‑end supply chain visibility, enhancing responsiveness and decision‑making through real‑time data.
  • Platform‑driven transformation (technology strategy, systems implementation, etc.) – enable organizations to implement advanced planning platforms (e.g., SAP IBP, Oracle Cloud SCM, Kinaxis, Blue Yonder) to automate and optimise planning processes.
  • Sustainable and resilient supply chain (risk, performance, innovation, diversity, sustainability) – assist in embedding sustainability and risk management into planning processes, balancing resilience with cost and efficiency.
  • Advanced analytics & AI – utilise advanced analytics and AI‑driven forecasting techniques to support predictive demand planning and scenario analysis, ensuring flexibility in rapidly changing market conditions.
  • Capacity planning & production scheduling – work with clients to optimise production scheduling and capacity planning, reducing bottlenecks and improving throughput in line with demand fluctuations.

• Work with colleagues to concisely and convincingly conveying the central business importance of effective planning to client stakeholders.
• Contribute to designing and supporting the strategic value case for Supply Chain & Operations planning transformation programmes. Ensure transformation work streams deliver their full strategic value. This will include, but not be limited to, the selection (based on a strategic assessment of business needs) and implementation of solutions such as SAP, Oracle, Blue Yonder, Kinaxis, o9 Solutions.
• Lead work streams within projects and delivery teams in our Supply Chain Planning group to formulate and execute innovative planning‑centric strategies.
• Support the development and optimisation of planning frameworks and drive the integration of advanced planning solutions, such as IBP (Integrated Business Planning) and AI powered forecasting, to enhance responsiveness and flexibility. These frameworks will cover the full end‑to‑end value chain of the…