About this role
About The Team:
The Planning team is the most data-driven team at HelloFresh: we plan, schedule and analyse the production of every box before it reaches our hungry customers across the UK. It's a team where technical skill genuinely moves the needle, and where the right person can make a real mark. This role is based in Derby, in our largest Distribution Centre in Europe.
What You Will Be Doing:
• Production & Capacity Planning: Build and maintain accurate production plans based on forecast demand, operational capacity, production constraints and site requirements.
• Rackplan Development: Create and validate rackplans that balance demand, SKU placement, capacity, stock availability and operational efficiency, understanding how planning decisions affect production flow.
• Plan vs Actual Analysis: Analyse planned versus actual performance, identify deviations and investigate the underlying drivers rather than simply reporting the variance.
• Operational Problem Solving: Use data to identify constraints, test assumptions and develop practical solutions to complex production and planning problems.
• Continuous Improvement & Automation: Identify opportunities to simplify, automate and improve planning processes, including the practical application of AI and analytical tools.
• Stakeholder Partnership: Work closely with Operations and cross-functional teams to understand requirements, challenge assumptions and ensure plans are executable on the production floor.
• Planning Governance & Data Accuracy: Maintain accurate operational inputs, including box and recipe volumes within PCS, and ensure planning outputs are thoroughly validated before release.
Who You Are:
• Analytically strong: Comfortable working with large and complex datasets and able to turn data into clear operational decisions.
• Naturally curious: You don't stop at identifying that something went wrong; you want to understand why .
• Strong problem solver: Able to break complex operational problems into manageable components, identify root causes and develop practical solutions.
• Technically capable: Advanced spreadsheet skills, including building, interpreting and troubleshooting complex formulas. Experience with SQL, Python, BI tools or similar analytical technologies would be advantageous.
• Automation-minded: Able to identify repetitive or inefficient processes and use automation, AI or other technology to improve them. Previous development of AI-enabled tools or solutions is desirable.
• Operationally aware: Able to understand the relationship between a planning decision and what physically happens in a production or fulfilment environment.
• Confident communicator: Comfortable challenging assumptions, asking difficult questions and constructively pushing back when the data or operational reality doesn't support a decision.
• Detail-oriented: Planning errors can have significant operational consequences, so accuracy and disciplined validation are es