Strategic Sourcing Lead

Strategic Sourcing Lead
East Cheshire area
£75,000 - £90,000
Strategic Sourcing, Machined Components & China Supply Chain
Travel:
Office based with occasional international travel, particularly to China
Reporting to:
Director
Technical Requirement:
Mechanical engineering background essential
About Oliver Valves
The company is a highly successful, privately owned UK engineering group with a global reputation for designing and manufacturing high-quality engineering solutions for critical applications.
The group includes several specialist divisions and they support a wide range of applications, from smaller equipment to larger, more bespoke items.
The company is continuing to grow its international presence and currently operates across 80 countries worldwide, works with a large number of global distributors, and has a manufacturing facility in the Far East. The business is highly profitable, has no bank debt, and has built long-standing relationships with major global companies.
The organisation also benefits from strong internal infrastructure and a dedicated research and development function.
The Opportunity
We are looking to appoint a commercially focused and technically credible Strategic Sourcing Lead to strengthen the global supply chain and improve purchasing performance across a major spend area.
This is a high-impact role with significant visibility across the business. The successful candidate will take ownership of a substantial spend across machined parts and engineered components, helping the company reduce cost, improve supplier delivery performance and become even more competitive in the market.
The role will be particularly focused on developing and improving the supply chain across China and India, while working closely with UK-based engineering, quality, production and senior leadership teams.
This is an excellent opportunity for an ambitious senior purchasing or procurement professional who wants to make a visible contribution in a profitable, growing and highly respected engineering business.
Role Purpose
The Strategic Sourcing Lead will be responsible for improving the commercial performance, resilience and delivery reliability of the machined-parts supply chain.
The main purpose of the role is to reduce cost, improve lead times, strengthen supplier performance and ensure the business has access to a reliable, scalable and cost-effective supplier base.
You will be expected to review existing purchasing activity in detail, identify opportunities for savings and supplier improvement, and ensure that cost reduction is achieved without compromising product quality or technical standards.

Key Responsibilities
Strategic Purchasing and Spend Management
 
* Take ownership of a significant spend across machined parts, engineered components and related mechanical commodities.
 
* They will develop and implement sourcing strategies that reduce total cost of acquisition, improve supplier reliability and support the continued growth of the business.
 
* This will include reviewing current purchasing activity, identifying areas of excess cost, challenging supplier pricing and introducing stronger commercial discipline across supplier negotiations, RFQs, long-term agreements and purchasing processes.
 
* The role will also involve benchmarking supplier pricing and capability across the UK, Europe, China and India.
 
* This is a lone role and will not have any team management responsibility.
Machined Parts and Technical Procurement:
A strong understanding of mechanical engineering and machined components is essential.
Understand how machined parts are produced, what drives cost, where quality risks may arise, and how to challenge suppliers credibly.
Work closely with engineering, production, quality and supplier development colleagues to ensure suppliers can meet technical specifications, tolerances, material requirements, documentation standards and delivery expectations.
The role will also involve identifying opportunities for value engineering, design-for-manufacture improvements, supplier consolidation and specification challenge where appropriate.
China, India and Global Supplier Development:
 
* A major focus…