Cox Automotive Europe
Planning Manager
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Planning Manager
40 hours a week (Monday – Friday)
Overview
Manheim Inspection Services is proud to be part of Cox Enterprises — a family-run company with a remarkable 120-year legacy of innovation and forward thinking. As the world’s largest automotive services organization, we’re a global force with more than 24,000 team members supporting over 40,000 customers worldwide.
Inspection Services: Trusted. Transparent. Ready. As the market leader in end-of-lease vehicle inspections and collections, Inspection Services delivers a seamless, on-the-spot damage assessment process—maximizing transparency and ROI.
We ensure vehicles arrive sale-ready, supporting Manheim and non-Manheim auctions alike. That’s why the world’s top leasing companies trust us to keep their remarketing process smooth, efficient, and reliable.
Why Join Us & What’s in It for You?
As a Cox Automotive team member, you’ll have access to a wide range of benefits, including exclusive discounts, cashback offers, and our brilliant peer-to-peer recognition scheme. And there’s even more to enjoy:
- Option to buy additional holiday days
- Your birthday off every year - paid
- One annual Well-Being Day for you to relax and recharge
- One paid Charity Day to give back and support a cause that matters to you
- Opportunities for career progression across the Cox Automotive network
- Competitive pension scheme
About The Role
We’re looking for an experienced and hands-on Planning Manager to lead our MIS Planning function within a busy, nationwide vehicle logistics operation.
With 500+ vehicle movements taking place every day, this is a key role in making sure we have the right drivers in the right places, at the right time. You’ll lead a team of planners and play a central role in delivering great service for our customers while making the best use of our driver resource.
You’ll have a strong focus on:
- Delivering excellent service performance
- Maximising driver utilisation and productivity
- Managing operational costs and efficiency
- Building resilience into the planning operation
- Continuously improving the way we plan and deliver our work
This is a hands-on leadership role where no two days are quite the same. You’ll need to be comfortable moving between the bigger picture and the detail, developing and improving the planning function while staying close enough to the day-to-day operation to make quick, informed decisions when challenges arise.
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What You’ll Be Doing
Planning & Resource Optimisation
- Lead the daily planning of up to 700 vehicle movements across the UK, ensuring the right driver resource is matched to the right work at the right time.
- Optimise the use of employed and self-employed drivers, maximising utilisation while minimising unnecessary mileage.
- Identify future capacity requirements and proactively address potential resource gaps.
- Ensure all movements are planned in line with customer requirements and agreed SLAs.
- Develop effective contingency plans to manage peak demand and operational disruption.
Operational Performance
- Take ownership of planning performance against agreed KPIs and SLAs.
- Ensure failed or aborted movements are prioritised and replanned quickly.
- Work closely with Operations to ensure the daily plan is achievable and realistic.
- Identify recurring operational issues and put effective corrective actions in place.
- Ensure systems and operational information are accurate, timely, and up to date.
Data, Reporting & Continuous Improvement
- Develop and maintain planning performance dashboards and reporting.
- Use data and insight to identify trends, capacity challenges, productivity opportunities, and inefficiencies.
- Analyse driver utilisation, movement volumes, service performance, and operational costs.
- Identify opportunities to improve planning efficiency and reduce operational costs.
- Lead continuous improvement initiatives across the planning function.
- Standardise planning processes and introduce best practice across the operation.
Stakeholder Management
- Work closely with the Head of Operations to deliver operational objectives.
- Build strong working relationships with Operations, Customer Service, and Finance.
- Act as the key escalation point for complex planning issues.
- Communicate clearly and effectively with internal and external stakeholders.
- Ensure customer requirements are fully understood and reflected in operational planning.
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Leadership
- Set clear performance expectations and individual and team objectives.
- Create a high-performance culture focused on ownership, pace, accuracy, and teamwork.
- Ensure planners are well trained and confident in managing complex operational scenarios.
- Review workload and resource across the planning team to ensure effective coverage.
- Encourage continuous improvement and challenge inefficient ways of working.
What We’re Looking For
We’re looking for someone who brings strong planning and leadership experience, ideally from a fast-paced transport, logistics, or vehicle movement environment. You’ll have:
- Proven experience managing a transport, logistics, or vehicle planning function.
- Ideally, experience managing a single-movement or trade plate planning team.
- Experience working in a high-volume, time-critical operational environment.
- A strong understanding of resource planning and optimisation.
- Experience leading, managing, and developing a planning team.
- A good understanding of operational KPIs, SLAs, and service performance.
- Excellent problem-solving and decision-making skills, with the ability to find practical solutions quickly.
- The ability to remain calm, focused, and decisive in a fast-paced operational environment.
- Strong commercial awareness, with an understanding of the balance between cost, resource, and customer service.
- Excellent organisational skills and attention to detail.
- Experience managing or supporting a nationwide operation.
- Ideally, experience using transport management, driver allocation, or logistics planning systems.
- A proactive approach to continuous improvement, with the confidence to challenge existing processes and find better ways of working.
- Strong communication and relationship-building skills, with the ability to work effectively across different teams and levels of the business.
We’re Committed to Inclusion
We are proud to be an inclusive and equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity in all its forms. We are a place where you can be you.
Ready To Join Our Team & Make A Difference?
Apply now and drive your career forward with one of the automotive industry’s most trusted names.
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