Lead Maintenance, Repair, and Operations Procurement Specialist II

Oil Dri•Ripley, MS

2d•Onsite

About The Position

The Senior MRO Buyer is the site-facing procurement leader for maintenance, repair, and operations materials and services. The role supports plant uptime by ensuring critical parts, consumables, and contracted services are available at the required quality, cost, and lead time while maintaining purchasing controls and disciplined inventory practices. It combines transactional purchasing with category sourcing, supplier performance management, JDE master-data stewardship, storeroom optimization, and cross-functional partnership with Maintenance, Operations, Engineering, Finance, Accounting, Master Data Governance, and Procurement teammates. The role is based at an active mine site and requires daily onsite presence, Monday through Friday. The work is office-based with regular plant and storeroom presence. Conditions may include uneven terrain, climbing ladders, navigating steps, and varying weather, including heat, rain, or mud. The role may involve occasional handling of parts up to 25 pounds and travel up to 10%. Over the next three to five years, the role is expected to move from manually processing routine transactions toward exception-based buying, data-driven inventory decisions, and AI-assisted sourcing. The Senior MRO Buyer remains accountable for validating system recommendations, managing operational risk, making sound commercial judgments, and strengthening supplier relationships. Oil-Dri Corporation of America manufactures and supplies specialty sorbent products for consumer and business-to-business markets. It is a family-controlled and operated organization that emphasizes honesty, integrity, and accountability and is dedicated to its mission to Create Value From Sorbent Minerals. Oil-Dri is committed to equal employment opportunity.

Requirements

Five or more years of progressive MRO procurement, industrial purchasing, maintenance-materials, storeroom, or manufacturing supply experience.
Demonstrated experience with ERP/MRP purchasing and inventory processes.
Working knowledge of industrial MRO categories, including mechanical power transmission, bearings, motors, electrical, controls, hydraulics, pneumatics, mobile equipment, safety supplies, tools, repair services, and facility services.
Ability to negotiate, resolve supplier issues, analyze spend and inventory data, and document measurable value.
Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel and business reporting tools.
Ability to learn and responsibly use AI-assisted procurement and analytics tools.
Competency in operational urgency, commercial judgment, data discipline, reliability mindset, cross-functional influence, ethics, continuous improvement, and alignment with Oil-Dri WE CARE values and Lessons Learned culture.
Ability to work onsite Monday through Friday at an active mine site and follow PPE and safety rules.
Ability to handle parts weighing up to 25 pounds occasionally.
Ability to travel up to 10%.

Nice To Haves

Bachelor’s degree in supply chain, business, engineering, or a related field; equivalent relevant experience is considered.
CPSM, CPM, CSCP, CPIM, or related certification.
JDE experience.

Responsibilities

Own end-to-end procurement of assigned MRO stock items, non-stock parts, repair services, facility services, tools, consumables, and other indirect requirements.
Coordinate order acknowledgements, expedites, returns, repairs, warranty claims, invoice discrepancies, and purchase-order closeout.
Convert approved requisitions into accurate purchase orders in JDE and verify order details before release, including supplier, item, quantity, unit of measure, price, promised date, freight and payment terms, tax treatment, and delivery location.
Prioritize critical, emergency, and production-impacting requirements and communicate status, alternatives, and risks to Maintenance and Operations through resolution.
Partner with Maintenance, Operations, and storeroom personnel to determine stock items and establish minimum, maximum, reorder point, safety stock, and order-quantity settings.
Maintain accurate JDE item-branch planning data, supplier lead times, pack quantities, costs, stocking locations, equipment references, and approved substitutes, using relevant usage, criticality, lead-time, downtime, and supplier-availability information.
Review slow-moving, obsolete, duplicate, and excess inventory and recommend redeployment across Oil-Dri locations, return to supplier, repair, disposition, or retention as insurance spares.
Develop sourcing strategies, conduct RFQs, and negotiate total cost, payment and freight terms, lead times, warranties, service levels, consignment, and VMI programs.
Consolidate spend where beneficial and qualify alternate sources for single-source, long-lead, and critical items.
Manage supplier performance, corrective actions, continuity risk, and onboarding requirements using delivery, quality, responsiveness, and invoice-accuracy data.
Serve as the site MRO purchasing and JDE subject-matter resource and protect item, supplier, and purchasing master-data quality.
Follow Procurement, Accounting, approval, contract, records-retention, ethics, and segregation-of-duties requirements and maintain auditable documentation.
Reduce manual touches, emergency buys, invoice exceptions, stockouts, and cycle time; coach junior buyers and authorized site users.
Lead exception-based buying as approved workflows automate routine replenishment and low-risk transactions.
Use AI to identify sources, compare quotations and landed cost, flag price anomalies, summarize terms, and support negotiations; independently verify recommendations before commitment.
Apply predictive analytics to critical-spare demand, supplier delays, obsolescence, and inventory imbalance.
Partner with IT and Operations to integrate systems and establish guardrails for suppliers, thresholds, escalation, approvals, confidentiality, and auditability; override automation when risk or poor data warrants.
Act within assigned authority, budgets, contracts, and policy, and escalate material legal, commercial, cybersecurity, conflict-of-interest, and operating risks.
Remain accountable for validating all information used in purchasing decisions, including automated or AI-generated recommendations.