Buyer/Planner

Responsibilities

• Translate production requirements, forecasts, MRP signals, inventory levels, lead times, and safety stock requirements into actionable purchase orders and material planning strategies.
• Identify potential material shortages before they impact production and develop recovery plans to maintain supply continuity.
• Monitor and maintain updated SAP planning parameters (supplier lead times, minimum order quantities, order multiples, safety stock levels, and other material planning data).
• Partner with Materials Management, SIOP, Operations, Warehouse, Engineering, Quality, and other cross-functional teams to ensure material availability.
• Maintain visibility of current and projected material availability for assigned commodities and components.
• Drive achievement of 100% material availability at the required point of use by proactively identifying, communicating, and escalating supply risks.
• Create, maintain, and manage purchase orders for assigned materials and services.
• Ensure purchase orders accurately reflect approved pricing, quantities, delivery schedules, payment terms, freight terms, and other commercial requirements.
• Communicate purchase orders, revisions, cancellations, forecasts, and delivery requirements to suppliers, and obtain acknowledgement of supplier commitments.
• Monitor open purchase orders from placement through receipt, expediting, deferring, rescheduling, or canceling orders as business requirements change.
• Maintain accurate purchase order dates, supplier commitments, and related procurement records within SAP.
• Ensure purchasing activities comply with established procurement policies, controls, and approval requirements.
• Serve as the primary operational contact for assigned suppliers.
• Monitor supplier performance, facilitate scorecard communication, conduct performance reviews, develop corrective action plans, and escalate chronic performance issues.
• Identify, evaluate, and support the development of new suppliers and alternative sources for assigned materials and commodities.
• Support RFQ/RFP activities, supplier quotation analysis, and source-selection.
• Support supplier qualification and onboarding activities in collaboration with Quality, Engineering, Operations, and other stakeholders.
• Identify opportunities for supplier consolidation, dual sourcing, localization, lead-time reduction, cost reduction, and overall supply chain improvement.
• Maintain accurate supplier pricing within purchase orders and SAP records.
• Investigate and resolve pricing discrepancies.
• Track supplier price changes, communicate material cost impacts to Supply Chain leadership, and ensure all pricing changes are appropriately reviewed and approved.
• Own the coordination and resolution of discrepancies involving purchased materials, working with Receiving, Warehouse, Quality, Finance, and suppliers.
• Investigate supplier invoice discrepancies and resolve three-way match exceptions involving purchase order, receipt, and invoice transactions.
• Maintain accurate purchasing and planning master data, including supplier lead times, minimum order quantities, order multiples, purchasing units of measure, pricing, acknowledgements, and other information required for effective material management.

Qualifications

• High School Diploma or equivalent required.
• Bachelor's degree in supply chain, business, or related field preferred.
• 3-5 years of planning, procurement, inventory, or manufacturing experience.
• Working knowledge of ERP systems, preferably SAP.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Solid understanding of inventory management principles, including safety stock, reorder points, and lead time management.
• Strong Excel skills.
• Strong communication and negotiation skills for vendor interactions.
• Highly organized with strong attention to detail and follow-through.
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced, collaborative start-up environment.