Production Planner / Scheduler

About the role

Xona is the navigational intelligence company bringing real-time, centimeter-level certainty to any device, anywhere on Earth.

With Pulsar - the world’s most advanced PNT satellite infrastructure in Low Earth Orbit - Xona will offer a future-proof, backwards-compatible global positioning system optimized for absolute precision, superior power, and robust protection.

About the role

Xona is building the next generation of satellite navigation - a high-performance, resilient alternative to GPS powered by a commercial constellation of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites. We are on a mission to unlock a new era of autonomy, advanced mobility, and infrastructure resilience by delivering precise, secure, and robust positioning services to the world.

We’re not here to incrementally improve GNSS. We’re here to redefine it from the ground up.

We’re looking for a Production Planner / Scheduler to take ownership for the planning, scheduling, tracking and capacity management of our satellite production facility.

As a critical team member of the production team, this role will ensure the correct work orders, staffing schedules and equipment priorities are aligned to deliver completed satellites on time.

The production planner will work closely with Supply Chain, Production, Manufacturing Engineering, Quality Assurance, and Program Management. They will translate the master production schedule into an efficient material release schedule to orchestrate all production activities efficiently. They will also proactively identify and resolve material, schedule and production constraints in support of the production ramp-up and to achieve the targeted, consistent build cadence.

What You’ll Do

• Manage the master production schedule and coordinated work order releases into the production facility.
• Work in close partnership with the supply chain and materials team to coordinate the work order release, capacity planning, material kitting and inventory staging in accordance with the established production plan.
• Manage all schedule changes/issues and adjustments and perform impact analysis and modelling as needed to best optimize production efficiency.
• Monitor all work-in-progress activities, ensuring that ECO’s, NCR’s or material supplier issues are managed and coordinated swiftly and effectively.
• Manage daily production control as an active participant of shop-floor production stand-up meetings and other scheduled operations reviews.
• Use digital tools: MRP, MES, etc. to optimize production planning activities and schedule coordination across cells/teams/shifts/sites.
• Support both short-term and long-term planning activities, to facilitate effective people and equipment capacity planning and budgeting.
• Actively improve and optimize the planning processes and activities over time in the Xona HQ facility and in close collaboration with the Montreal facility team.

Desired Qualifications

• Holds a bachelor’s degree in supply chain, Industrial Engineering, Operations Management, Business, or related technical discipline. APICS or ASCM certification is desirable.
• Experience in aerospace, satellite, defense, medical device, semiconductor, or other high-complexity manufacturing environments preferred.
• At least 2 years’ experience in a planning, production control, logistics, MRP or inventory management role is essential in a rate-production facility.
• Strong understanding, proficiency and experience with MRP/ERP systems. Intimate with production scheduling, capacity planning and materials management aspects of these digital tools.
• Advanced Excel user, able to extract and interpret digital data from multiple systems to evaluate/monitor/model and improve the production planning processes.
• Has a working understanding of lean manufacturing principles and QMS systems
• Data-driven decision maker, able to anticipate risks to production and supply chain and work to mitigate them before production schedules are impacted.
• Excellent organizational, communication and analytical skills required.

Additional information

For U.S. Roles: To comply with U.S. Government space technology export regulations, applicant must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the United States (i.e. Green Card holder), or other protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3).

For U.K. Roles: To comply with U.K. regulations, this role requires Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) checks, and successful candidates must be eligible to obtain UK Security Clearance (SC).

For Canada Roles: Successful candidates must obtain and hold a security clearance at the reliability status level, and pass security assessment for the Canadian Controlled Goods Program (CGP) and ITAR.