Cost Analyst Operations

• Prepare and validate recurring plant cost inventory and manufacturing schedules supporting the monthly close including assigned accruals reconciliations journal-entry support and variance explanations in accordance with the corporate close calendar.
• Reconcile analytical outputs to governed financial results; investigate exceptions document support and escalate unresolved or non-routine accounting matters to the Plant Controller and Corporate Controllership.

• Execute assigned standard-cost activities and annual cost-roll tasks under enterprise methods calendars validation requirements and approval workflows established by Product Cost Controlling. Product Cost Controlling designs and governs the costing model; the Operations Cost Analyst executes validates explains and improves costing within the assigned operations scope.
• Validate bills of material routings labor and machine rates overhead rates yields scrap factors and related production master data; identify missing stale or inconsistent inputs and coordinate corrections with Operations Engineering Supply Chain and IT.

• Analyze purchase price material usage labor efficiency scrap overhead spending absorption job-close and other standard-to-actual manufacturing variances.
• Translate variances into operational root causes financial implications and practical follow-up actions; distinguish supported facts from assumptions and escalate policy methodology or system issues to the appropriate owner.

• Support inventory valuation cycle counts and physical inventories; analyze reconciliations adjustments aging reserves excess and obsolete exposure turns and working-capital trends.
• Partner with Plant Controlling Operations and Supply Chain to identify inventory risks and actions while preserving service resilience control integrity and approved accounting treatment.

• Prepare plant planning inputs for volume mix labor material overhead inventory and capital using governed definitions approved assumptions and traceable source data. Maintain assigned operations cost and manufacturing assumptions for the forecast evaluate forecast-to-actual performance and identify recurring bias or unsupported assumptions.
• Maintain scorecards cost bridges and recurring operating analyses that connect production drivers to gross margin operating profit inventory and cash; clearly explain what happened why it happened what is expected next and what action is required.

• Provide cost capacity productivity and margin analysis for labor planning sourcing make-versus-buy automation capital footprint product-mix new-product and continuous-improvement decisions.
• Quantify expected benefits implementation costs timing and dependencies and track approved productivity sourcing automation and continuous-improvement initiatives from business case through realized P&L working-capital and cash impact. Improve standard work documentation controls data quality analytics and automation to reduce manual effort and site-specific dependency.

• Perform assigned activities in accordance with GAAP J-SOX corporate policy delegated authority segregation-of-duties requirements and AFL environmental health and safety expectations. Retain clear support for calculations assumptions approvals and changes.

• Bachelors degree in Accounting Finance Business Economics Supply Chain Engineering or a related analytical discipline.
• Typically two or more years of relevant experience in cost accounting manufacturing finance plant operations analysis inventory supply chain analytics or a comparable role; equivalent practical experience will be considered.
• Working knowledge of standard costing inventory valuation manufacturing variances absorption concepts financial controls and production economics.
• Proficiency with ERP and reporting systems advanced Excel and analytical or visualization tools; Oracle and Power BI experience preferred.
• Ability to work with detailed operational and financial data reconcile to governed sources identify root causes communicate implications and manage multiple deadlines in a matrix organization.

Required Experience:

IC