General Operative - Cutting

Explore your career opportunities with McHale Join Us

At McHale, we strongly believe in creating an environment which fosters creativity and teamwork, where people can fully realise their true potential, allowing them to develop cutting edge agricultural solutions in line with worldwide customer needs.

With over 35 years' worth of combined experience, today McHale is working harder than ever, to innovate, design and build the best products for a fast-changing world with a growing population.

An environment which fosters creativity & teamwork Who we look for

At McHale, we strongly believe in creating an environment which fosters creativity and teamwork where people can fully realise their true potential, allowing individuals to develop cutting edge solutions.

• We look for ambitious, highly motivated, results focused people who share a passion for achievement.
• Individuals with excellent communication and relationship building skills.
• People with an appetite for continuous learning and development within a team environment.

Why choose McHale Company Benefits

McHale offers a complete and competitive package of benefits that demonstrates how much we care for employees and their families through every stage of life. We reward performance and hard work and offer life-long career growth opportunities.

• Competitive pay based on experience.
• Learning, development and career progression opportunities.
• Company subsidised Healthcare Insurance for employee and family.

Global Production Planner

Location: McHale, Ballinrobe, Co. Mayo

Title: Global Production Planner

Global Production PlannerMcHale is inviting an ambitious and talented Global Production Planner to join our team based at our Head Office in Ballinrobe, Co Mayo.This is a permanent onsite position, reporting to the Sales Director. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• This is a senior role with responsibility for managing people across two sites, Ballinrobe and Hungary.
• Develop, review, and maintain production plans and schedules in alignment with the Master Production Schedule and plant priorities.
• Manage and maintain demand forecasts, ensuring forecast accuracy, timely updates, and alignment with customer demand patterns, business inputs, and plant capacity constraints.
• Partner with cross-functional teams to evaluate demand changes, capacity limitations, material constraints, and operational risks, and translate those inputs into actionable production plans.
• Reconcile order discrepancies, customer order changes, and shifting priorities to minimize disruption to the production schedule.
• Coordinate price lists, buying groups and dealer setup with the Sales Director and Finance, ensuring approved changes are applied accurately.
• Oversee load lists, freight coordination and the information needed for timely dispatch.
• Communicate with Operations, Purchasing, Sales, Marketing, Engineering, and other stakeholders to ensure alignment on customer priorities, forecast changes, and production requirements.
• Continuously evaluate forecast inputs, demand trends, inventory positions, and capacity availability to recommend schedule and production plan adjustments.
• Continuously evaluate Customer Estimated Ship Dates, re-calculating and updating at key milestones.
• Participate in cross-functional meetings to resolve delayed shipments, component shortages.
• Identify opportunities to improve forecast processes, planning parameters, schedule stability, and overall plant planning effectiveness.

KEY SKILLS & EXPERIENCE

• Minimum of 5 years of experience in a manufacturing environment.
• Experience in production planning, forecasting, inventory management, MRP, and lean manufacturing processes.
• Strong people management, organisation and communication skills.
• Strong ability to balance supply and demand needs within a dynamic plant environment.
• Demonstrated capability in managing, maintaining, and improving forecasts to support production planning and inventory decisions.
• Ability to make decisions with information based on current plant priorities and market needs.
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, multi-tasked manufacturing environment.
• Strong problem-solving, analytical thinking, ownership mindset, and cross-functional collaboration skills.
• Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to independently resolve issues.
• Strong data analysis and data manipulation skills to support planning, forecasting, and decision-making.
• Working knowledge of ERP systems, MRP logic, and production planning processes.
• Understand CPQ systems and workings of same.
• Understanding of product configurations, options, substitutions, and critical functions/components.
• Strong customer service orientation with a commitment to supporting internal and external customer requirements.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to communicate effectively across multiple functions and levels of the organization.
• Ability to identify risks proactively and develop practical solutions to maintain schedule performance and customer commitments.

COMPANY BENEFITS

• Competitive salary based on experience.
• Learning, development, and career progression opportunities.
• Company subsidised Health Insurance for employee and family.
• Company pension scheme.
• Subsidised canteen & onsite parking.

I started in the company in 2000, following a season with a contractor in 1999, after finishing my degree in Institute of Technology Tralee. I saw an ad in the Irish Farmers Journal and applied.

I started on the assembly line of the 991 wrapper and after 18 months I moved to the UK into a service role until 2009. The UK is one of our largest markets, where our full range of equipment is used, so I gained knowledge there as the company expanded into balers. Following this, I moved back to Ballinrobe, where I started at the in-house service department.

What does your job entail?

As technical support and service is one of the company's main priorities, the first part of the job is making sure that our importers, dealers and customers who require help with problems are able to get answers as quickly as possible. So during the busy season this means answering these queries and making sure problems are resolved. We have a team of technical people in all of our main markets and all the information from them is processed to eliminate problems from machines through the research and development department. In the off-peak season I cover the technical training for all our dealers and importers. This is done in-house or in the importer's country.

What is your typical day like?

In season, it is answering calls and emails to resolve problems for importers, dealers and customers actually working in the field. Out of season, it is training or travelling to importers to do training there.

What are your favourite parts of the job?

From one day to the next it is never the same, constantly dealing with different people in all of the 56 countries we are operating in.

What are the greatest challengesin your job?

I guess trying to have solutions to problems to keep customers working. Different crops and unusual conditions in any of the 56 countries we are operating in, means the cause of a problem or the solution to that problem can differ from call to call.

Do you like your job?

After 22 years, I have to say I do. I have visited and operated our machines in most of the 56 countries that we export to. I have seen countries and parts of countries that I would never see otherwise. Coming from a sheep and suckler farm in southwest Kerry, I would never have thought that I would have gotten the opportunity and knowledge of agriculture from so many parts of the world.