Procurement Manager
Procurement Manager
Company Overview
Founded in 1969, KitchenBrains®, continually leads the industry in the design, development, manufacturing and deployment of controls, monitors, sensors and IoT connectivity for foodservice outlets and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) that reduce costs, drive productivity, and increase guest satisfaction. Kitchen Brains brands, including (FAST.)®, Modularm® and KitchenEssentials, feature a growing number of products that incorporate KitchenKorrect™ IoT/cloud connectivity, and can be found in leading QSRs, casual and fine dining restaurants, convenience and grocery stores, schools, hospitals, stadiums and more globally.
Position Summary
The Procurement Manager is responsible for leading the procurement team, responsible for ensuring the demand for products meets the revenue and service requirements while optimizing the investment in inventory. The Procurement Manager provides functional expertise to improve the utilization of ERP Systems in the planning and execution process. The Procurement Manager takes an active role in understanding Kitchen Brains’ strategic direction and the role of material and supply chain teams in achieving our key goals and strategies. The Procurement manager will also collaborate with the leadership team to achieve those goals and drive favorable PPV.
As a Procurement Manager, you will report to the VP of Operations.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities
- Develop and implement best practices for materials procurement and planning teams that are tasked to plan for a high-mix, low volume business.
- Manage the material planning and procurement processes and vendor evaluations which translates the demand from sales and service to requirements for production and purchasing, collaborating with the KB engineering team for both existing and new products.
- Develop and execute global sourcing strategies to improve quality, reduce costs, and provide scalability
- Initiate and implement plans for continuous improvement of the Procurement Process
- Work with suppliers to provide high quality, low cost, and scalability in order to provide materials required for production efficiency
- Align with the production planning team so that bookings & the sales forecast and other product demand signals to create a consensus demand forecast.
- Help develop tools to help better understand capacity for overall operations.
- Recommend/Communicate Capacity plans to optimal inventory levels at various locations across the supply chain and support the proactive management of those levels in order to achieve targeted customer satisfaction as well as mitigate inventory exposure.
- Monitor material inventories, tracks progress of production and review factors that affect schedules, ensuring that the schedule is aligned with current sales.
- Monitor and evaluate vendor performance to eliminate or ameliorate parts shortages and drive cost containment while improving vendor performance with attention to electronic/electro-mechanical commodities; impacting both new product introductions and mature, discontinuing products; collaborate in evaluating new suppliers.
- Establish and maintain the process to ensure all procurement/vendor performance and planning data within the ERP master files are accurate.
- Determine and communicate changes to the production plans that react to increases or decreases in demand. Ensure efficient utilization of inventory investment.
- Manage the inventory control process to maintain inventory levels that are accurate and controlled.
- Continue to implement system enhancements to provide users (Production, Materials, Purchasing and Distribution) with additional tools and information.
- Report weekly ECO activity for material segregation, rework and scrap dispositions.
- Report monthly work order WIP variances.
- Collaborate with various production groups to ensure plans are executed and capacity or other constraints are identified and resolved.
- Manage all audit requirements for materials planning and procurement.
- Lead a team of procurement professionals/buyers.
Required Education and Experience
- Bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience.
- 10+ years’ experience in Procurement with a minimum within an electronics manufacturing environment.
- You will be a hands-on individual contributor in procurement as well as provide leadership to your team.
- Develop and execute global sourcing strategies to improve quality, reduce costs, and provide scalability.
- Initiate and implement plans for continuous improvement of the Procurement Process
- Work with suppliers to provide high quality, low cost, and scalability in order to provide materials required for production efficiency
- A minimum of four years of experience working with offshore suppliers.
- Familiarity with various advanced manufacturing process technologies in the PCB & Electronic controls industry required.
- Ability to negotiate to achieve optimized a “total cost of ownership” for both for off the shelf and custom components.
- Excellent leadership skills – Dynamic, Leadership Savvy, Interpersonal Communication and Relationship-building skills, Drive and Passion, Execution Rigor, Influencing Expectations, Clear and Effective Communication, Accountability Management, Consequence Leadership, Group facilitation skills and Organizational positioning skills
- Independence, creativity and good judgment, positive attitude, and an innovative spirit
- Communication—must be able to effectively communicate in both written and verbal forms, and at all levels in the organization
- Proven ability to build a high performing, self-directed team
- Teamwork – must be able to lead a team(s) of KB employees from multiple disciplines and divisions.
- Results orientation paired with high energy and the ability to handle conflict.
- Proven process improvement, change management, effective coaching and mentoring skills.
- Mastery of a variety of Lean & Continuous Improvement initiatives would be a plus.
Kitchen Brains is an Equal Opportunity Employer