Senior Buyer

Senior Buyer (Manufacturing)
Duration: PERM
Hours: M-F 8am-5pm (8:15am production meeting, daily)
Notes from Intake:

• Seeking a Senior Buyer (10 years’ experience) would consider a more junior level 5+ with a college degree, would need to be sharp, outgoing etc.
• We’re looking for someone with a stronger background in process improvement and some project management skills.
• Manufacturing experience, BOM, manufacturing processes
• Looking for someone who has had some difficult accounts dealing with difficult suppliers. Mature enough to deal with these situations.
• 80% of the company spend is Austria and Japan which causes international shipping delays, long lead times.

Overall, Purpose:
Ensure that material is procured and delivered on time to enable operational and production continuity. Works closely with internal and external parties to ensure supply of materials is in place to satisfy production requirements. Conducts regular tactical and strategic activities to support this goal.
Key Responsibilities:

• Daily actioning of buy messages, placing orders as necessary to address negative material allocations or items below safety stock thresholds
• Generate weekly ocean and air freight orders for largest suppliers
• Generate orders as needed for project specific demand based on input from project managers
• Daily actioning of buyer reports related to KPI’s including past due PO lines, unconfirmed PO’s, at-risk PO lines
• Conduct weekly meetings with largest suppliers and freight forwarders to ensure continued flow of up-to-date information
• Keep ERP system (JD Edwards) updated with confirmed delivery dates, en-route shipment dates and tracking information
• Provide material and inbound freight transportation costs and lead times for project quotes
• Take ownership of material issues that arise, including over or under delivery and take any follow up actions especially in the event of material shortages that affect operations
• Seek and recommend solutions to overcome arising issues in order to meet customer requirements and address operational risks
• Conduct regular commodity reviews to ensure accurate demand modeling data
• Provide analysis and input into S&OP process using forecast information solicited from product management and executive sales team
• Drive and support continuous improvement initiatives
• Work with appropriate business functions and ensure JDE data fields are complete and correct for all supply chain related item master data

Relationship Management:

• Collaborate with internal and external stakeholders to forecast, plan and facilitate on-time materials to the production line as and when required avoiding disruption to operations
• Work with cross functional teams to deliver timely and effective solutions and data availability
• Liaise with stakeholders on product change and new product introduction requests and review and communicate the impact on material planning and schedules
• Support new business initiatives and projects and contribute to review meetings and change process. Ensure effective material planning implementation takes place relating to the changes
• Develop and maintain good relationships with suppliers and ensure demand for materials is met and deliveries made on time
• Contribute to supplier meetings and negotiations to ensure demand for materials is met
• Resolve supplier concerns and evaluate supplier performance in conjunction with members of the quality control team

Skills and Attributes: 

• Highly skilled communicator with the ability to form and maintain good relationships internally and externally
• Strong interpersonal, negotiation and influencing skills
• Strong business and financial acumen
• Results oriented and organized with the ability to plan and deliver against deadlines
• Proven analytical, planning and problem-solving skills
• Project management skills
• Excellent attention to detail
• Embraces personal challenge
• Confident, rounded thinking 
• Is resilient, optimistic and open to change
• Self-starter
• Flexible, works well under pressure

Qualifications and Experience: