Purchasing Supervisor
About The Position
Reporting to the Purchasing Manager, the Purchasing Supervisor leads, develops, and supports the purchasing team while maintaining active responsibility for key buying activities. The role ensures material availability, supplier performance, cost competitiveness, and operational excellence through effective leadership, strategic sourcing, project management, and continuous improvement. It supports production schedules, customer commitments, and overall business performance by securing quality materials at the best total cost. The position works in an office environment. The physical demands include regular sitting and use of hands, frequent talking or hearing, and occasional standing, walking, reaching above the shoulders, climbing or balancing, and stooping, kneeling, or crouching. The employee may occasionally lift or move up to 25 pounds.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in supply chain or a related field required.
- Project management skills required.
- Proficiency in Microsoft Office.
- Ability to solve problems professionally and independently in a fast-paced environment with changing priorities and competing deadlines.
- Strong analytical skills.
- Strong organizational and time management skills.
- Attention to detail.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
- Ability to read and interpret purchasing-related documents, including catalogs, product literature, and technical books or manuals.
- Ability to prepare reports, purchase orders, and purchasing-related correspondence, and communicate effectively with vendors and employees.
- Ability to calculate discounts, interest, proportions, percentages, and volume, and apply basic algebra.
- Ability to follow written, oral, or diagrammatic instructions and address problems involving several concrete variables in standardized situations.
- Ability to meet the stated physical demands, with reasonable accommodations as applicable.
Nice To Haves
- At least 3 years of previous purchasing experience in a manufacturing setting preferred.
- Familiarity with the steel industry highly preferred.
- Experience with Epicor preferred.
- Advanced Excel skills preferred.
Responsibilities
- Lead, coach, and develop purchasing team members by setting priorities, providing direction, fostering accountability, and promoting collaboration.
- Perform purchasing activities, including reviewing material requirements, sourcing suppliers, obtaining competitive quotations, issuing purchase orders, and managing orders through delivery.
- Lead purchasing-related projects from planning through implementation, coordinating stakeholders, schedules, risks, and deliverables.
- Drive continuous improvement to enhance purchasing processes, improve supplier performance, reduce waste, and increase service levels to internal customers.
- Serve as the primary escalation point for purchasing issues, resolving material shortages, supplier concerns, pricing discrepancies, quality issues, and competing priorities.
- Ensure materials are sourced and delivered on time, meet quality expectations, support production schedules, and are optimized for total cost.
- Monitor supplier quality, delivery, cost, and service performance, and implement corrective actions and supplier development plans as needed.
- Develop, analyze, and communicate purchasing metrics, including cost savings, supplier scorecards, on-time delivery, quality performance, inventory impacts, and other departmental KPIs.
- Analyze demand trends, forecasts, inventory levels, open orders, and market conditions to identify material requirements, mitigate supply risks, and uncover cost-saving opportunities.
- Negotiate pricing, lead times, contracts, and commercial terms to secure reliable supply and maximize organizational value.
- Partner with Operations, Planning, Engineering, Quality, Finance, and other stakeholders to align purchasing strategies with business objectives and customer commitments.
- Identify supply chain risks, develop contingency plans, and communicate potential impacts and mitigation strategies before disruptions occur.
- Maintain accurate supplier, pricing, purchasing, and purchase order data for reporting, forecasting, and decision-making.
- Ensure purchasing activities comply with company policies, contractual obligations, ethical standards, and applicable laws and regulations.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Manager
