Supply Chain Specialist

Essential Utilities, Inc.•Springfield, PA

22h•Onsite

About The Position

Aqua, an Essential Utilities company, is seeking a Supply Chain Specialist to join their team. This role, reporting to the Supervisor of Supply Chain Management, will be responsible for various supply chain functions across the Aqua footprint. Key areas include category management for national contracts, meter management, contract management, strategic sourcing, cost savings initiatives, reporting, competitive bidding, risk management, negotiations, and administrative tasks. The specialist will also handle other projects and assignments, providing exceptional customer service to internal and external stakeholders with a sense of urgency and ownership of all supply chain processes and department activities.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree required.
2-5 years of prior experience in supply chain or related field
Proficient in Microsoft Office (Email, Word, Excel, PowerPoint).
Excellent written and verbal communications skills; communicate effectively (clearly, concisely, and professionally) with internal customers.
Strong customer service skills
Ability to work well under pressure.
Ability to work on multiple projects simultaneously and adapt to changing priorities in a fast-paced environment.
A team player able to work effectively in a team fostered multi-tasking environment.
General business acumen and understanding of procurement/sourcing and materials management practices.

Nice To Haves

Supply chain certification preferred.
Familiarity with SAP (preferred) or similar ERP platform.
Additional knowledge in the areas of accounts payables, accounting, financial analysis, logistics, business law (specifically contract law), vendor management, inventory/materials management, utility operations (construction, engineering & maintenance) and Essential policies, procedures and standards are a plus.
General knowledge of utility operations including water and/or gas operations is preferred, but not a requirement.

Responsibilities

Manages various national category spend including but not limited to: Chemicals, Meters, Pipe, Valves and Fitting (PVF).
Effectively facilitates the business requirements with our Operations and Engineering teams working toward standardization within our national categories.
Facilitate contract lifecycle management (review, update, execution) with legal and business partners.
Involved with supplier negotiations and competitive bids.
Process includes the analysis of bid documents, creation of RFPs, collection, analysis, and review of bid proposals.
Manages vendor contract onboarding/renewal process across the Aqua footprint.
Leverages companywide purchasing power with vendors to achieve the lowest possible cost while utilizing the most efficient procurement process.
Schedule reviews to ensure that contract terms are being met (pricing, quality, etc.) and service level is being maintained.
In a teaming environment, provides support desk help for PO Desk and serves as back up to other purchasing personnel.
Ensures supplier risk is properly managed through compliance with supplier on-boarding procedures.
Ability to generate and analyze reporting related to purchase order history, payment history and vendor history to ensure contract pricing is correctly applied to all orders.
Acts as liaison with state requesters, state operators and state controllers to provide best in class customer service levels to support operations.
Performs vendor agreement updates in SAP. Includes updating vendor price lists and new vendor items as needed in the catalog.
Effective in promoting companywide supplier relationships to ensure supplier performance and proper utilization of supplier programs (portal, websites, controls, marketing tools, satisfaction surveys, etc.) to support supply chain efficiency.
Partner with material management to update and maintain the item master catalog.
Periodically meet with key suppliers to review sales history, vendor catalog and pricing to ensure item master catalog is current.
Partner with accounts payable to streamline payment processing and to take advantage of favorable supplier terms and discounts.
Primary liaison with state buyers monitoring service levels of vendors with states.
Monitors compliance with all aspects of Essentials’ Expenditure Control Policy and Delegation of Authority
Assists with other tasks or projects as assigned.