Hire a production planner in Greater Montreal
Hiring a production planner turns on one question: does your plan get rebuilt every morning, or does it hold for the week? A repeat-order plant and a make-to-order plant do not call for the same instincts, even when the posting reads the same. This page gives you a job description to copy, the requirements that actually hold up, and eight interview questions.
Job description to copy
Replace what is in brackets, then post it as is.
Production planner
Location: [city], Greater Montreal · Schedule: [day / evening / night], [number] h per week
Pay: [to be set] (benchmark: median $27.25/h in Quebec (Job Bank))
Responsibilities
- Build the master production schedule and publish it to production, procurement and shipping
- Release manufacturing orders in the ERP after checking materials and capacity
- Prepare material estimates and trigger replenishment with procurement
- Keep material inventory records and reconcile the plan against what actually came off the line
- Chase suppliers as soon as an announced material threatens a start date
- Write progress reports and present the variances at the production meeting
- Rebuild the sequence mid-day: breakdown, rejected batch, absence, rush order
- Arbitrate between orders competing for the same line, and document the call
- Maintain the data that makes the plan lie: cycle times, yields, lead times
- Prepare planned shutdowns and inventory counts with maintenance and the warehouse
Requirements
- High school diploma — what the National Occupational Classification asks for this occupation, which is not regulated
- Full-cycle ERP or MRP experience: requirement, manufacturing order, consumption, close-out
- Able to read a bill of materials and a routing for what you build
- Spreadsheet skill at the level of filters and pivot tables
- Time spent on a production floor, in a stockroom or at receiving
- The ability to hold a sequence when three departments claim priority the same morning
Assets
- AEC Gestion des approvisionnements et planification de la production (EJN.14), or the DEC Technologie du génie industriel (235.B0)
- CPIM designation from the Association for Supply Chain Management, or enrolled in it
- Experience with your production mode: make-to-order, make-to-stock, batch, continuous
- Experience on the ERP you run, or on one close to it
- Working written English or French, depending on where your suppliers sit
What we offer
[benefits, insurance, shift premiums, training]
Production planner pay benchmark
| Region | Median | Offered in postings |
|---|---|---|
| All of Quebec | $27.25/h | — |
| Montérégie | $26.75/h | $20.25 (26) |
| Montréal | Quebec figures | $18 (20) |
| Laval | $25.79/h | — |
| Lanaudière | $26.03/h | $20.50 (10) |
| Laurentides | $24.16/h | $20 (15) |
Median published by Job Bank (NOC 14402) and median offered in job postings (6 months, February to August 2026); in brackets, the number of hourly postings.
Eight interview questions
- How did you decide a manufacturing order was ready to be released?
- A machine goes down at 9 a.m. and three orders were running on it today. Walk me through the next hour.
- Which cycle times and yields did you plan with, and who kept them current?
- Where did your plan lie to you most often, and how did you find out?
- A salesperson promises a date without asking you: what do you do, and who do you call first?
- Which system did you run, and what did you keep on the side in a spreadsheet?
- How did you handle changeovers: grouping batches, sequencing formats, sequencing colours?
- Tell me about a rush order you refused to insert. How did that end?
Timelines and difficulties
The title is the first trap, and it is nastier here than elsewhere. Production planner is not among the job titles of NOC 14402, which speaks of schedulers, scheduling clerks and production clerks; Job Bank, for its part, attaches that exact title to NOC 90010, manufacturing managers. Two people answering the same posting can therefore be aiming at roles several rungs apart, on two different pay scales. Say in the posting whether the person executes the plan or decides it, and who they defend it to. The second point is the data: a planner is only as good as the cycle times, yields and lead times in your system. If nobody maintains them, the person you hire will spend the first months repairing data instead of planning, and that is better said upfront. The third is the way in. The classification asks only for a high school diploma in this group, and adds that experience leads on to coordination: a posting that demands an industrial engineering diploma at the door rules out the scheduling clerk who already knows your lines. Look inside before you open the role outside.
We run this search for employers in Montreal, Laval, Longueuil, the North Shore and the South Shore. Our recruitment service: logistics and supply chain
If the placement does not hold six months, we replace it.
The replacement is on us. You do not pay twice for the same role.
A role to fill?
Fifteen minutes on the phone is enough to know whether we can deliver your mandate, and to tell you straight whether the salary range holds.
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