Team Leadership

• Lead, mentor, and develop a team of Buyer Planners.
• Assign workloads and balance responsibilities across projects and commodities.
• Conduct coaching sessions, performance reviews, and KPI tracking.
• Support employee development through training and cross-functional exposure.
• Ensure continuity of purchasing and planning activities during absences.

Materials Planning & Production Support

• Coordinate material plans with project schedules and production requirements.
• Review Bills of Materials (BOMs) and identify long-lead components early in the project lifecycle.
• Lead material shortage escalations and coordinate corrective actions across departments.
• Monitor project priorities to maintain production schedules and customer delivery commitments.
• Support both configure-to-order and engineered-to-order manufacturing environments.

Sales & Demand Planning

• Partner with Sales during quoting activities to provide realistic material lead times.
• Participate in Sales, Inventory & Operations Planning (SIOP).
• Monitor demand trends and proactively position critical materials.
• Support customer stocking programs and inventory agreements.

Strategic Supply Chain Management

• Develop inventory strategies for critical and long-lead components.
• Identify sourcing risks and implement mitigation strategies such as dual sourcing, safety stock, supplier-managed inventory, and long-term agreements.
• Support commodity planning and make-versus-buy evaluations.
• Monitor market conditions including pricing, tariffs, supply disruptions, and commodity availability.

Inventory Management

• Oversee inventory accuracy, working capital, and inventory health.
• Drive improvements in inventory turns while maintaining production readiness.
• Lead excess and obsolete inventory reviews and disposition planning.
• Manage safety stock policies, reorder parameters, cycle counts, and annual physical inventories.
• Balance inventory investment with operational requirements.

Supplier Performance

• Manage supplier delivery, quality, responsiveness, and lead-time performance.
• Conduct supplier business reviews and oversee improvement initiatives.
• Partner with Quality on Supplier Corrective Action Requests (SCARs).
• Support supplier qualification and development activities.
• Negotiate pricing agreements, blanket purchase orders, and long-term supplier contracts.

ERP / MRP Leadership

• Maintain accurate ERP/MRP planning data including item masters, BOMs, supplier lead times, and planning parameters.
• Ensure purchasing and planning activities are executed through the ERP system.
• Identify planning issues and improve system effectiveness.
• Partner with IT on ERP enhancements and reporting improvements.

Reporting & Continuous Improvement

• Prepare weekly and monthly supply chain performance reports.
• Track KPIs related to inventory, supplier performance, shortages, and material availability.
• Lead Lean and continuous improvement initiatives focused on inventory optimization, warehouse efficiency, and planning accuracy.
• Support 5S, process improvements, and operational excellence initiatives.

Key Performance Indicators

Success in this role will be measured by metrics including:

• Inventory Turns (goal: 10+ annually)
• Material Availability
• Supplier On-Time Delivery
• Purchase Price Variance
• Excess & Obsolete Inventory Reduction
• Production Downtime Due to Material Shortages
• Supplier Quality Performance
• Strategic Inventory Readiness