Senior Buyer

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Procurement & Supplier Management

• Lead RFQs and negotiations, including pricing, commercial terms, lead times, MOQs, and supply commitments.
• Manage ongoing supplier performance related to on‑time delivery, quality, responsiveness, and cost.
• Support alternate sourcing, dual‑source qualifications, and outsourcing initiatives to mitigate supply risk.
• Resolve supplier quality, delivery, or commercial issues, including returns, replacements, and corrective actions.
• Participate in purchasing strategies that balance cost, service level, inventory, and risk.

Contract Manufacturer (CM) Purchasing Management

• Manage purchasing activities related to contract manufacturers, ensuring alignment between internal demand plans and CM material requirements.
• Coordinate pricing, lead times, MOQ agreements, and component availability for CM‑managed BOMs.
• Monitor CM inventory exposure, excess risk, and constrained materials, and proactively recommend mitigation actions.
• Support contract negotiations and commercial alignment with CMs in collaboration with sourcing, engineering, and finance.
• Ensure visibility and accuracy of CM material commitments, open orders, and inventory positions.

Operational Execution

• Create, release, and maintain purchase orders in the ERP system with accurate pricing, dates, and part data.
• Monitor ERP/MRP exceptions and take action to prevent shortages, production disruptions, or missed customer commitments.
• Expedite late, constrained, or high‑priority materials in support of production schedules.
• Maintain accurate supplier data, purchasing records, and contract terms.
• Support standard cost reviews and periodic cost updates as required.

Data Analysis, Reporting & Analytics

• Analyze demand forecasts, historical consumption, lead‑time trends, pricing history, and supplier performance data to support purchasing decisions.
• Develop, maintain, and automate analytical tools using Excel, Power Query, and Power BI to improve visibility into supply, inventory exposure, and supplier performance.
• Create dashboards and reports to track KPIs such as supplier OTD, lead‑time accuracy, open order health, inventory compliance, and excess/obsolete risk.
• Perform data cleansing, transformation, and modeling to improve data accuracy and reporting reliability.
• Identify trends, risks, and improvement opportunities related to cost reduction, lead‑time optimization, MOQ alignment, and inventory strategy.
• Translate complex data into clear, actionable insights for supply chain and operations stakeholders.

Cross‑Functional Collaboration

• Work closely with planning, production, engineering, quality, and warehouse teams to align material supply with operational requirements.
• Partner with commodity management and sourcing teams on supplier strategies, negotiations, and performance reviews.
• Provide clear material availability, risk, and constraint updates to planning and customer service teams.
• Support complex purchasing issues, escalations, and special projects as required.

Continuous Improvement

• Recommend and implement improvements in purchasing processes, analytics, and ERP data accuracy.
• Contribute to continuous improvement initiatives focused on automation, standardization, and data‑driven execution.
• Support the evolution of purchasing dashboards, reporting tools, and workflows to improve efficiency and decision quality.