Purchasing Director

At Republic & T.F. Ehrhart, it’s our greatest Joy to take care of our customers and our team. Our third-generation business has grown to be a leading wholesale distributor of electrical energy management, heating, air conditioning, hydronic and sign support systems. Through our winning culture and one growing team working together to serve our customers;
Republic and T.F. Ehrhart teams deliver the best products to our customers in Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin and Missouri. If you’re looking for a company that has a strong and colorful history, allows you to focus on your family and find purpose in what you do every day, join our team today and start building your career with an industry leader.

Reporting directly to the Vice President of Operations, the Purchasing Director is a critical leader in our organization. This leader will drive supply chain efficiency, oversee a multi-million-dollar inventory budget, and work closely with many departments. This role is responsible for aligning product availability with sales demand, managing vendor scorecards, and leading a team of buyers to optimize margins and fulfilment rates.

This position will work out of our Davenport, IA location.

• Create, review and manage product categories, core stocking rules, branch guidelines, min/max logic, safety stock levels.
• Support dead inventory reduction through reporting and cross-functional collaboration, including offboarding strategies such as returns to vendors, promotions, transfers or liquidation.
• Work with sales to support demand planning by reviewing critical SKUs for price increases, new products, projects, weather spikes, promotions, retiring products, etc.

• Create Vendor Scorecards to assess profitability, supply reliability, inventory health, and competitive advantage.
• Support supplier negotiations through reporting and pricing data.
• Optimize freight programs through consolidated ordering, managing prepaid freight thresholds, shipment timing, transfer efficiency, and vendor freight agreements.
• Manage lead times and track vendor on‑time delivery performance.
• Hold vendors accountable for on‑time delivery, request credits, and expedite shortages or delivery needs.

• Define and manage demand planning k cross-functionally with the Sales team to understand rolling forecasts and use historical sales, seasonality, market trends, promotions and project activity to build a strong demand plan.
• Anticipate supply chain interruptions and evaluate lead times effectively during demand planning.

• This position is a champion of ERP purchasing processes and logic, workflows, and approval processes for all transactions in purchasing (POs, Receipt of Inventory, Transfers, etc). This is automated support to assist in making replenishment decisions including min/max, reorder points, safety stock, and transfer logic.
• Provide automated support to assist in replenishment decisions, including min/max levels, reorder points, safety stock, and transfer logic.
• Maintain item data integrity. Ensure vendor records, item records, product categories, and reporting remain accurate and up to date.
• Oversee vendor management, ensuring vendors are appropriately assigned to buyers and branches with clear rationale.
• Partner with ERP systems experts to develop role‑based approval structures that define authority levels.
• Work with senior leaders to establish a new product/line introduction process.
• Automate system functionality and reporting wherever possible, particularly related to POs not received, acknowledgments, and exceptions.

• Recruit, train and mentor buyers and/or other department positions.
• Work closely with Pricing department to ensure strategic initiatives are achieved.
• Hold team members accountable to new processes, develop SOPs for the department, and establish performance expectations.

• Lead and/or participate in cross-functional processes across the organization.
• Partner with Sales on demand forecasting.
• Work with Branch Managers and the VP of Operations to solve…