Allocation & Demand Planning Analyst -CPG/Retail -6 Month Contract

This is a 6 month contract with a hybrid work arrangement

About Us

At Upper Canada Soap, we’ve been creating innovative bath, beauty, and lifestyle products for over 55 years. With brands including Masque BAR, Vintage Cosmetic, Erase Your Face, Danielle Beauty, and Yes Studio, our products are sold globally across major retail and eCommerce partners.

Our supply chain and planning teams play a critical role in ensuring the right products are in the right place at the right time, supporting growth while maintaining operational excellence.

We’re looking for an Allocation & Demand Planning Analyst to own key planning and execution processes that connect demand signals to inventory flow and warehouse execution.

This is a highly analytical, hands‑on role focused on replenishment and allocation, with the core objectives of improving customer fill rate, reducing aged inventory, and speeding up fulfillment timelines. You’ll be expected not only to run the process, but to continuously improve it, identifying what isn’t working, automating manual tasks, and freeing up time for higher‑value analytical and strategic work.

This role is ideal for someone who combines strong planning fundamentals with a continuous improvement mindset and a bias for action.

Key Responsibilities

Demand Planning & Replenishment

• Own core demand planning activities including Core replenishment planning, and AS replenishment.
• Build on existing planning methodologies and tools to improve fill rate, inventory availability, and overall planning accuracy.
• Analyze sales, forecasts, inventory positions, and lead times to create executable replenishment plans.
• Identify and address drivers of aged and slow‑moving inventory, adjusting planning logic where necessary.
• Partner with supply chain, commercial, and operations teams to ensure demand plans are realistic, aligned, and actionable.
• Partner with Sales to ensure we increase turns and reduce aged inventory at all locations

Allocation & Order Release

• Own allocation process and release orders to the warehouse, ensuring orders are released accurately and on time. We expect this person to manage the order well and proactively release orders understanding WH lead times.
• Reduce the time it takes to get orders to get allocated (540 to 550 status) and released to the warehouse floor (both 3PL and internal warehouses).
• Review all open orders 2-3 weeks out to allocate accordingly and communicate any shorts or conflicts due to ETA’s and overcommits to CS / Sales Team
• Work closes with your WH colleagues (internal & external) to ensure they have forward looking visibility to the order well, in advance of releasing orders, to allow them to properly manage labour.
• Proactively identify risks to execution and resolve issues upstream, reducing last‑minute escalations and “miracle” requests to the warehouse.
• Weekly Winners meetings to review all open orders – identifying issues so customer service can work with customer to make adjustments to PO’s (extension requests, qty changes)

Continuous Improvement & Automation

• Define and own continuous improvement initiatives within demand planning and allocation. Identify manual, repetitive, or inefficient tasks and develop strategies to automate or simplify them.
• Suggest a new process for allocation which takes into consideration customer margin and ship dates.
• Reallocate time from transactional work to value‑added analysis and strategic problem‑solving.
• Act as the owner for diagnosing what isn’t working in current processes and tools, and for proposing and driving solutions. 
• Collaborate cross‑functionally to implement and sustain improved workflows and best practices.
• Bring data and storytelling to the forefront of your role. Improve the way we buy & allocate inventory which modernizes the organization.

Success in This Role Looks Like

• Improved customer fill rate and service levels
• Reduced aged and excess inventory
• Faster, more predictable order release cycles
• Increased process automation and reduced manual touchpoints
• Stronger alignment between planning and warehouse execution

Who You Are

• Highly analytical with a strong sense of operational urgency
• Comfortable owning end‑to‑end processes and being accountable for outcomes
• Naturally curious, you question why things work the way they do
• Proactive problem solver with a continuous improvement mindset
• Organized, detail‑oriented, and effective in a fast‑paced environment
• Strong attention to detail
• Always looking to improve everyday responsibilities to improve business practices    

Why You'll Want to Join Our Team

• Health, Dental Optical and EAP Benefits
• Hybrid work schedule – in person to start. 
• Supportive team environment
• A growing industry!

Salary  $60,000 - $80,000

At Upper Canada Soap, we value the unique skills and experiences that each individual brings to our team and welcome all interested candidates to apply. We strongly encourage applications from members of equity-deserving communities, including Indigenous, Black, racialized individuals, women, people with disabilities, and those with diverse gender identities, expressions, and sexual orientations. UCS is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants upon request.

Thank you for your interest in joining our team. Please note that only candidates selected for further consideration will be contacted.