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- United States
- Work type
- Hybrid
- Posted
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The Senior Manufacturing Plant Financial Analyst is the senior finance professional embedded at the plant. Reporting to a Plant Controller, this role owns the detailed analysis behind manufacturing cost performance — material variances, plant expenses, and budget and forecast variances — and carries delegated Plant Controller responsibility for assigned sites.
This is not a reporting-only job. The analyst is expected on the floor as much as in the ledger: reconciling what the system says against what actually happened at the line, tracing a variance back to a BOM, a routing, a scrap event, or a purchase price change, then working with operations, sourcing, and engineering to close the gap.
Success is not a variance report delivered on time. It is the plant understanding the variance and doing something about it. The role is the primary development path into Plant Controller.
Own material variance analysis end to end for the assigned sites — decomposition, root cause, and follow-through.
- Decompose total material variance into its components each period: purchase price variance, material usage and yield variance, scrap and rework, substitutions, and revaluation from standard cost changes.
- Analyze variances at the level where they are actionable — part number, commodity, supplier, work order, product family, and value stream — rather than stopping at a plant-level total.
- Trace significant variances to their source: BOM accuracy, routing and standard quantity errors, receipt and issue timing, inventory transaction errors, supplier price changes, or genuine operational performance.
- Distinguish real operational performance from data and timing noise, and correct the underlying master data rather than explaining the same error every month.
- Partner with sourcing on PPV drivers, quantify the impact of price changes and supplier moves, and validate that negotiated savings are reflected in standards and in the P&L.
- Support annual standard cost roll and interim standard updates: analyze proposed cost changes, quantify inventory revaluation impact, and explain year-over-year standard shifts by driver.
- Review scrap and yield reporting with operations, validate reported quantities against inventory movement, and quantify the cost of quality by line and part.
- Maintain and improve the recurring material variance reporting package, with commentary that identifies cause and owner, not just amount.
Own the analysis of plant operating expense — what was spent, why, and whether it was worth it.
- Analyze plant expense by department and cost center, covering direct and indirect labor, overtime and premium pay, supplies, maintenance and repair, utilities, freight, outside services, and other controllable spend.
- Review labor and overhead absorption: analyze rate and volume effects, under- and over-absorption, and the impact of production volume and mix on fixed cost recovery.
- Identify spend drivers and flag adverse trends early, rather than reporting them after the quarter closes.
- Validate accruals and reclasses during close, and work with the Plant Controller and Corporate Accounting to ensure expenses land in the right period and the right cost center.
- Review open purchase orders and commitments against plan, and highlight where committed spend puts the forecast at risk.
- Analyze headcount and labor hours against plan — including temp labor, absenteeism, and overtime as a percent of total hours — and connect labor cost to production output.
- Support cost reduction and productivity initiatives: build the baseline, quantify expected savings, and verify realized savings in actual results.
- Prepare capital expenditure support as needed, including payback and ROI analysis for plant projects and post-completion review of approved capital.
Own the plant’s actual-to-plan story and the analytical work behind the forward view.
- Produce monthly variance analysis of actual results against budget, forecast, and prior year, with commentary that names the driver, the amount, and the owner.
- Bridge results from plan to actual by driver — volume, mix, price, material cost, labor performance, absorption, and spend — so leaders can see which effects are operational and which are structural.
- Support the annual budget build for the assigned sites: gather departmental input, challenge assumptions against historical performance, model volume and cost scenarios, and consolidate into the plant submission.
- Support the rolling forecast cycle, updating the outlook for known operational changes, demand shifts, cost movements, and one-time items.
- Track forecast accuracy over time, analyze recurring miss patterns, and drive changes to assumptions or process that improve the next cycle.
- Quantify risks and opportunities against the current outlook, and maintain a running view of what could move the plant’s results.
- Prepare variance narrative and supporting schedules for monthly business reviews, in a form the Plant Controller and Director can present without rework.
Act as a finance business partner to the plant leadership team, not a scorekeeper reporting from a distance.
- Sit with the plant leadership team in operating reviews and bring the financial view of operational performance to the discussion.
- Analyze and report the operational KPIs that drive financial results: cost per unit, labor efficiency and utilization, scrap and first-pass yield, on-time delivery, inventory turns, and overtime rates.
- Connect operational metrics to financial outcomes — translate a yield improvement or a schedule change into dollars so leaders can prioritize by impact.
- Challenge the numbers constructively. Question assumptions, test whether a reported improvement shows up in the P&L, and raise concerns early even when the message is unwelcome.
- Build and maintain plant dashboards and self-service reporting in Power BI, sourced from Synapse and NetSuite/Oracle, so leaders get consistent numbers without waiting on a request.
- Support continuous improvement and lean initiatives with baseline data, savings validation, and post-implementation measurement.
- Provide ad hoc analysis for make-versus-buy decisions, capacity questions, pricing support, and operational trade-offs.
- Help plant leaders who are not finance professionals understand standard costing, absorption, and variance mechanics well enough to manage against them.
Support the Plant Controller across the recurring finance calendar and the controls that keep plant numbers reliable.
- Execute assigned month-end close tasks: journal entries, accruals, account reconciliations, and inventory and cost-of-sales validation, completed to the corporate close calendar.
- Reconcile perpetual inventory to the general ledger, investigate differences, and support resolution of transactional and timing issues.
- Participate in physical inventory and cycle count programs — plan support, count observation, variance analysis, and follow-up on count accuracy.
- Analyze inventory levels, aging, excess and obsolete exposure, and reserve adequacy for the assigned sites.
- Work with the Sr Manager of Inventory and Costing on standard cost methodology, cost roll execution, and consistent costing practice across sites.
- Work with the Financial Systems Analyst and the FP&A Manager to keep plant reporting, data models, and hierarchies accurate as the business changes.
- Maintain internal control discipline over plant financial processes, and support internal and external audit requests.
- Document recurring analysis so it can be repeated, reviewed, and handed off — no analysis that lives only in one person’s spreadsheet.
Required
- Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, or a related field.
- 5+ years of progressive manufacturing finance experience, including demonstrated ownership of plant-level analysis for a production site.
- Strong working knowledge of standard costing, manufacturing variance analysis, inventory accounting, and absorption.
- Month-end close experience in a manufacturing environment, including journal entries, accruals, and account reconciliations.
- Demonstrated ability to work independently and carry analysis through to a recommendation without direction.
- Advanced Excel — large data sets, lookups, pivot tables, and model building
- Experience with an ERP system; NetSuite or Oracle experience preferred.
- Ability to explain financial results clearly to people who do not work in finance, and to hold a position with plant leadership.
Preferred
- Power BI experience
- Experience in a multi-site manufacturing organization.
- Experience leading a physical inventory and supporting audit fieldwork.
- CPA, CMA, or MBA, or active progress toward one.
Work Environment This is primarily a desk-based role, requiring extended periods of sitting and computer use
Hybrid position with approximately 3 days in office per week
Physical Requirements Prolonged periods sitting at a desk and working on a computer. Must be able to lift up to 15 pounds at times. Ability to traverse office and manufacturing facility.
Trew EEO Statement
Trew and its companies are an equal opportunity employer. Applicants will be considered for employment without regard to age, race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry, marital status, affectional or sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, nationality, sex, or veteran status.
Other Duties Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice.