Senior Category Manager

Job Description

Primary Function of Position

• Manages supply chain of direct materials suppliers and parts (machined parts, castings and motion control components) to support business continuity and optimization, including sourcing, development of category strategy roadmaps, negotiating contracts, analyzing spend, creating inventory management strategies, gathering commodity intelligence, and managing supplier performance; may include limited management of purchase orders.

• Leads and executes strategies with cross-functional category team(s) to optimize supply chain across all manufacturing locations

• Identifies and implements key Global Supply Chain initiatives

• Develops and refines key business processes; champions and mentors team members in use of Sourcing processes; monitors industry and professional best practices

Essential Job Duties

• Category Management

  • Provides cross-functional team leadership within metals category; leads cross-functional category team meetings

• Collaborates with manager and cross-functional peers to create long-term supplier strategies and roadmaps. Engages with internal stakeholders to develop and influence category strategy that aligns with long-term business objectives, including capacity management, cost reduction targets, supplier performance improvement plans, inventory health targets and supply risk optimization.

• Co-leads direct procurement supplier selection process with collaboration from Supplier Engineering. Leverages knowledge of strategic sourcing practices to identify a core supply base able to offer lowest total cost of ownership and high-quality product while identifying value improvement opportunities.

• Leads alignment of production supplier requirements and sourcing strategies with those of new product development (NPI) for designated suppliers/categories to ensure uninterrupted material availability, alignment of risk, and cost goals with long term vision for the category / business

• Prioritizes category team projects in collaboration with manager and ensures team goals and objectives are achieved

• Leverages knowledge of commodity trends to propose and execute category strategies

• Develops and presents category strategy reviews for metals category

• Supplier Performance Management

• Leads supplier score carding and supplier business reviews for assigned suppliers

• Effectively identifies areas of improvement and sets internal and supplier targets to align with business objectives

• Proactively collaborates with supply base and procurement team to understand and communicate demand changes and minimize excess inventory or material shortages

• Leads continuous improvement efforts needed with suppliers and collaborates internally with cross-functional team to drive performance improvement projects

• Effectively manages improvement projects and key milestones and presents progress to the internal and external stakeholders

• Escalates issues with supplier executive leadership and drives resolution to achieve business objectives

• Risk and Capacity Management

• Develops mitigation plans and programs for assigned suppliers and critical sub-tier suppliers; collaborates with manager and cross-functional peers to drive implementation

• Leads capacity assessments for assigned suppliers and critical sub-tier suppliers; anticipates long-term risks and installs proactive mitigations

• May serve as project manager for key supplier capacity or risk mitigation initiatives

• Leverages problem solving skills and develops counter-measures to implement long-term solutions to identified problems

• Contract and Cost Management

• Establishes contractual agreements with suppliers and amendments to existing agreements

• Negotiates long-term volume pricing, risk mitigation, and capacity agreements with key suppliers to support Intuitive’s volume growth

• Reviews, administers, and manages long-term purchase order and delivery commitments to designated suppliers as necessary to support production and/or sales requirements within the business

• Leads identification and implementation of cost reduction ideas to achieve year-over-year cost goals within metals category

• Operational Management

• Supports plant purchasing by leading negotiations with suppliers to adopt and implement lean sourcing principles to enable 100% material availability and optimization of on-hand inventory levels

• Develops and Embraces continuous improvement techniques to drive toward attainment of key purchasing metrics (supplier on-time delivery, quality, risk management, inventory velocity, and cost reduction)

• May lead change management/change order implementation for complex projects

• Supports master data integrity for suppliers and parts

• Mentors colleagues within the supply chain organization. Identifies process and training improvement opportunities and drives closure of identified gaps.