Procurement VAVE Specialist

Strattec Security • Milwaukee, WI

25d

About The Position

Strattec is seeking a Procurement VAVE Specialist to identify, evaluate, and deliver cost-reduction opportunities for highly engineered automotive access products. The role leads physical product teardowns and competitive benchmarking, develops financial cases for optimization ideas, coordinates cross-functional validation, and facilitates supplier-led VAVE workshops. It also manages cost-out projects through testing, regulatory approval, and factory implementation.

The posting additionally describes technical program management responsibilities, including coordinating interconnected workstreams, translating product requirements into roadmaps and milestones, managing schedules, risks, and dependencies, and facilitating technical trade-offs. The role communicates program status and business impact to cross-functional stakeholders and executive leadership, and leads post-mortems and root-cause analyses to improve processes.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Supply Chain, or a hybrid technical-commercial field.
• 4–6 years of experience managing technical cost-reduction or continuous improvement programs in a high-volume production sector, such as automotive or consumer electronics.
• Knowledge of value engineering methodologies.
• Financial acumen, including ROI and total cost of ownership analysis.
• Strong project management capabilities.

Nice To Haves

• Certification in Value Engineering, such as CVS or VMA, is highly preferred.

Responsibilities

• Lead physical product teardowns and competitive benchmarking workshops to identify cost-out opportunities such as material substitution, weight reduction, and process optimization.
• Calculate the financial feasibility of optimization ideas, including implementation costs, modification charges, tooling updates, and payback periods.
• Coordinate validation testing among Quality, Engineering, and Procurement to secure approval without compromising product performance.
• Facilitate VAVE workshops with key suppliers to identify savings in manufacturing tiers or raw material supply chains.
• Track cost-out projects from initial idea through testing, regulatory approval, and factory implementation.
• Manage complex, multi-team technical programs and interconnected workstreams from kickoff through deployment.
• Translate product requirements into technical roadmaps, milestones, and engineering deliverables.
• Identify, track, and mitigate technical risks, bottlenecks, and resource constraints that could affect delivery dates.
• Own program schedules, establish milestones, manage technical dependencies, and drive accountability across engineering teams.
• Participate in technical design reviews to ensure solutions are scalable, maintainable, and aligned with long-term infrastructure goals.
• Facilitate technical trade-off decisions between engineering and product teams, balancing speed to market against technical debt.
• Ensure testing, code quality, security protocols, and documentation are integrated into the program lifecycle.
• Serve as the primary technical point of contact for cross-functional stakeholders, including Product, Security, Compliance, and executive leadership.
• Prepare clear, actionable executive updates that translate technical status and engineering metrics into business impacts.
• Lead post-mortems and root-cause analyses for program failures or major deployment incidents to support continuous improvement.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation package, including base pay, regular salary reviews, and short-term incentive opportunities.
• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, with eligibility starting day one.
• Paid time off for vacation, holidays, sick time, and bereavement for eligible employees.
• 401(k) retirement savings plan with company match up to 5 percent and immediate vesting.
• Company-paid life insurance coverage.
• Wellness program supporting physical, emotional, and financial wellbeing.
• Opportunities to volunteer and give back to the community.
• Additional local benefits may apply depending on location or facility.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level