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Salary: USD 100,000 - 135,000 / annual
CHAOS Industries is a defense technology company founded in 2022 and backed by $1 billion in funding from leading investors including 8VC, Accel, and Valor Equity Partners. The company develops multi-product defense solutions powered by Coherent Distributed Networks (CDN™) for warfighters, commercial air operators, and border protection teams.
This Production Planner role is based in El Segundo, California and serves as the operational hub coordinating production execution across radar and RF manufacturing environments. You will own the complete work order lifecycle—from release planning through queue management and execution flow—while maintaining visibility into production performance and risk.
Key responsibilities include:
**Work Order Management**: Review and release production work orders aligned to master production schedules and program milestones. Verify work order completeness including correct revision levels, approved MBOM structure, routing accuracy, and required documentation. Ensure ECO/ECN changes are properly incorporated and coordinate with Manufacturing Engineering to resolve discrepancies.
**Production Queue & Flow**: Interface daily with Manufacturing Engineers, Lab Supervisors, Production Leads, and Inventory/Material Control to prioritize and sequence work orders based on material readiness, capacity constraints, test station availability, and program deadlines. Monitor WIP levels and aging, identify bottlenecks, and escalate issues impacting throughput or milestone delivery.
**Line of Balance (LOB) Tracking**: Develop and maintain LOB tracking across radar subsystem and system-level builds. Monitor build progression against planned rates and milestone commitments, identify variances between planned vs. actual performance, and provide early warning indicators of schedule slip or capacity shortfalls. Support rate ramp analysis and LRIP-to-FRP transition tracking.
**Performance Reporting & Analysis**: Generate and maintain production schedule performance reports including work order release vs. plan, completion status, cycle time performance, WIP aging, and schedule adherence. Analyze trends in late starts, late completions, rework-driven delays, and material-driven delays. Support executive and program-level reporting and ensure ERP/MES data integrity.
**Kitting & Material Coordination**: Coordinate with Inventory and Material Control to confirm full kit availability prior to work order release. Validate shortages, substitutions, and serialized component allocation. Ensure traceability-controlled hardware is properly staged and escalate material risks affecting Line of Balance.
**Configuration Verification**: Verify accuracy of as-built documentation and traveler completion. Ensure serial number tracking, substitutions, and deviations are documented. Confirm required inspections and quality checkpoints are complete and support configuration audits.
**Cross-Functional Leadership**: Lead or support daily production scheduling reviews, communicate schedule status and risk to Operations leadership, coordinate rework prioritization, and support milestone builds and surge production events.
**Requirements:**
- Associate's or Bachelor's degree in Business, Supply Chain, Operations Management, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience)
- 5-7+ years of experience in production scheduling, production control, or manufacturing planning
- Experience managing work orders within ERP and/or MES systems
- Working knowledge of Bills of Material (BOM/MBOM), routing structures, revision control, and work order lifecycle
- Experience building and maintaining Line of Balance (LOB) tracking
- Strong analytical capability for schedule performance reporting
- Ability to coordinate across engineering, production, and inventory teams
- U.S. Citizenship (if required for program access)
**Preferred Qualifications:**
- Experience in aerospace, defense, electronics, or RF/radar production environments
- Experience supporting LRIP or rate ramp production
- Familiarity with serialized hardware tracking, Engineering Change Orders (ECO/ECN), and configuration-controlled products
- Experience generating executive-level production performance reporting
- Working knowledge of capacity planning concepts, Lean manufacturing principles, and production forecasting tools
- Experience with PLM systems integrated with ERP/MES
