Lead Cost Estimating Analyst

AAM - American Axle & Manufacturing•Detroit, MI

1d•Onsite

About The Position

Work within the Procurement group and serve as liason between Procurement Category Management and the rest of the organization with a goal of estimating business cases in a timely and accurate fashion. Contemplate the different price structure factors at play: design changes, volume, capacity, economics, etc. Act as the key resource within Procurement to understand the changes and complexities of large-scale automotive programs, analyze how these changes can affect every component within a BOM of purchased components, and communicate the needs of the customer or the organization to Procurement Category Management to ensure supplier costs are accurate, reasonable, and justifiable.

Requirements

BA/BS plus 7 years professional experience; or Advanced Degree plus 5 years professional experience; or Industry Experience of plus 10 years in Manufacturing Engineering or equivalent.
Strong technical expertise in casting, stamping, machining and/or related categories required.
Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills.
Excellent oral and written communication skills.
Self-motivated individual with the ability to work independently as required.
Good level of understanding of Financials indicators and metrics supporting decision making: GP, NPV, Payback, IRR, EBITDA, etc.
Knowledge of manufacturing process for various categories: castings, forgings, machining, stampings, etc.
Proficiency in understanding engineering drawings and specifications
Proficiency in analyzing and challenging supplier quote and cost breakdown
Proficiency in defining cost drivers in any manufacturing process

Nice To Haves

Knowledge of automotive powertrain products along with manufacturing methods/processes preferred.
Manufacturing experience preferred.

Responsibilities

Serves as the liason between Procurement Category Management and Finance to drive cost efficiency and coordination for creating multiple business cases.
Responsible for creating, compiling, and presenting procurement pricing related to new sourcing opportunities and design changes.
Responsible to layout price drivers for components in scenarios such as: design changes, volume fluctuation studies, new business, etc.
Represent the Procurement organization in cross-functional team meetings to ensure all deliverables are provided to properly cost components accurately and efficiently.
Provides reporting to the management team on cost drivers related to new business opportunities and major cost changes to support financial decision making.
Gathers requirements in support of category management, helps facilitate the process and act as an escalation point to both Procurement and the Cost Request system team, where needed.
Provides various data analysis such as volume change comparison, BOM changes, supply base overview.
Makes recommendations to leadership from a customer standpoint, by aggregating the voice of the internal customer.
Understand and break down product technical requirements (weight, specs, material, prints, etc.) to support preliminary cost creation and multi-functional team committee cost estimation.
Good understanding of impact of production volume, tooling, lead-time, and ED&T when costing Engineering Bill of Materials for new and current programs using Manufacturing Plans and Cost Models.
Responsible for evaluating and analyzing cost changes for various products/processes – castings, stampings, forgings, machining etc.; and associated tooling investments by reviewing technical specifications and requirements.
Coordinate within the Procurement organization the answer to multiple Cost Requests processed at the same time (prioritize based on given timing and business criticality, perform the data manual input in the system).
Follow-up with various departments to ensure Cost Request answers are accurate and on-time.
Organize and record supply base pricing to leverage the internal knowledge in order to offer competitiveness for future new potential business costing.
All other duties as assigned.