Purchasing Manager

Essential Duties

• Safety, compliance and governance:
  Perform all work safely and promote a safe working environment. Maintain strict adherence to the Code of Conduct, Product Compliance Policy, purchasing controls, delegated authority limits, quality standards, and all applicable laws and regulations.
• Team leadership and development:
  Lead, coach, and develop the buying team; establish clear roles, priorities, service expectations, performance measures, and succession plans. Allocate workload effectively and ensure appropriate coverage across plants, suppliers, and product categories.
• Hands‑on purchasing execution:
  Remain actively involved in day‑to‑day purchasing, including purchase requisition review, purchase‑order placement, order confirmations, expedites, shortages, late orders, substitutions, supplier communication, invoice discrepancies, and issue resolution.
• SAP and MRP ownership:
  Own purchasing execution through SAP and ensure MRP is used as the primary driver of material requirements and purchase‑order activity. Establish routines to review MRP exceptions, reschedule messages, shortages, past‑due orders, forecast consumption, and inventory risks.
• Single source of truth:
  Drive adoption of SAP as the single source of truth for suppliers, lead times, pricing, minimum order quantities, lot sizes, source lists, purchasing information records, contracts, open purchase orders, delivery dates, and material planning parameters. Reduce reliance on offline trackers and uncontrolled spreadsheets.
• Automation and process efficiency:
  Identify, prioritize, and implement SAP, workflow, reporting, and purchasing automation opportunities that reduce manual effort, improve control, accelerate decision‑making, and increase data accuracy. Partner with IT, Finance, Operations, and divisional teams to deliver sustainable process improvements.
• Planning parameter accuracy:
  Partner with Plant Managers, Supply Chain leads, planners, and Finance to maintain appropriate safety stocks, reorder points, lot sizes, lead times, procurement types, and other MRP parameters for raw materials and purchased finished goods.
• Supplier management:
  Establish and maintain strong supplier relationships. Monitor delivery, quality, responsiveness, capacity, risk, and commercial performance using structured scorecards and regular business reviews.
• Sourcing and commercial negotiations:
  Lead or support sourcing events, negotiations, contracts, payment terms, freight terms, rebates, and cost‑reduction initiatives. Ensure purchasing decisions reflect total delivered cost, quality, supply continuity, working capital, and strategic fit.
• Cost and productivity initiatives:
  Develop and deliver a measurable pipeline of purchase‑price variance, cost avoidance, specification optimization, alternate sourcing, payment‑term, inventory, and process‑efficiency initiatives.
• Inventory and working capital:
  Balance material availability with working‑capital requirements. Review excess, obsolete, slow‑moving, and at‑risk inventory and lead actions to prevent accumulation, improve turns, and manage supplier commitments.
• Supply risk and continuity:
  Identify critical materials and suppliers, assess capacity and supply risks, and maintain appropriate mitigation plans, alternate sources, contractual protections, and escalation processes.
• Forecast and supplier communication:
  Translate demand forecasts, production plans, and MRP requirements into timely supplier forecasts and purchase commitments. Communicate material constraints and risks clearly to Operations, Sales, Finance, and leadership.
• Purchase‑order and control discipline:
  Ensure all purchases are supported by approved purchase orders, correct pricing, appropriate quantities, valid approvals, and accurate delivery dates. Establish controls for confirmations, changes, blanket orders, spot buys, and invoice matching.
• Cross‑functional collaboration:
  Work closely with Operations, Quality, Engineering, Finance, Commercial, Logistics, IT, and divisional procurement teams to support launches, trials, substitutions, plant changes, and business‑wide improvement initiatives.
• Reporting and performance management:
  Develop and…