Procurement and Inventory Specialist

Position Objective

The Procurement and Inventory Specialist plays a critical role in maintaining supply chain resiliency, efficient inventory, minimizing costs, and fostering strong vendor relationships, as well as strong relationships with clinical teams when there is a need to source alternative products. This role organizes, schedules, and executes daily departmental activities, including working in financial systems that manage the inventory and procurement operations of the health system, and contract management systems such as Global Health Exchange‑Contract Center System (GHX CCS) and group purchasing organization (GPO) systems.

The role provides subject‑matter expertise that is critical to successful vendor relationship management, inventory management, cost containment, process and quality improvement, and supply chain customer service. The Procurement and Inventory Specialist is responsible for ensuring optimal inventory levels to meet customer and operational needs by placing and managing stock replenishment orders or orders for products that are used across the health system by clinical inventory locations.

This role also involves coordinating with vendors to resolve issues such as back orders, cost changes, delayed or short shipments, invoice discrepancies, and product returns. When alternative products require sourcing due to manufacturer backorder issues, the Specialist plays a critical role in product identification, sourcing, price negotiation and delivery timing to maintain smooth hospital operations in the support of patient care.

• Exercises appropriate judgment and executes orders to maintain supply stability for the health system, particularly in times of supply shortages; understands the critical nature of products and escalates issues that are not resolvable.
• Monitors inventory and item demand levels; analyzes inventory turnover; adjusts ordering to minimize inventory excess and avoid stockouts.
• Leads the procurement effort on Low Unit of Measure distribution program expansion, constantly looking at inventory items to determine if they are good candidates for this unique distribution program with the primary distributor.
• Issues purchase orders based on trends, forecasts, and stock requirements. Conveys appropriate demand levels to distribution supplier partners to achieve optimal order fill rates.
• Tracks open orders; resolves delays and discrepancies promptly and works with supply chain site managers when there are issues that might impact supply availability.
• Negotiates with vendors to address pricing, shipping, invoicing, and quality issues and strives to achieve and maintain GPO contract pricing and purchasing compliance.
• Assists health systemwide inventory areas and other stakeholder departments in researching and purchasing best‑value products to ensure the proper needs and goals of the health system are maintained, in terms of product availability, GPO compliance, product standardization and approved product use.
• Assists departments with ad‑hoc requests, returns, ordering issues and order status updates pertaining to their orders.
• Coordinates the supply chain response to backorders or ordering delays related to orders and collaborates with leadership to identify potential substitute products.
• Serves as an expert resource for supply chain regarding inventory replenishment and backorder management; uses available technologies such as People Soft, ECRI, GHX and Premier Spend Director and Supply Disruption Manager to provide end users with information regarding products, pricing, and usage.
• Collaborates with cross‑functional teams such as materials management, OR and accounts payable to ensure efficient procure‑to‑pay management resulting in timely delivery of products and supporting on‑time payments.
• Is knowledgeable of GPO contracts and health system contracts to ensure procurement compliance within the terms of contracts/agreements.
• Resolves any issues or disputes with suppliers, such as late deliveries, purchasing holds, quality concerns, or contractual non‑compliance, ensuring a satisfactory resolution that aligns with the organization’s goals.
• Provides…