Senior Buyer

Senior Buyer

The Senior Buyer is responsible for leading and executing advanced tactical procurement activities to ensure timely material availability and support daily production requirements. This role focuses on hands-on supplier management, issue resolution, detailed purchasing execution, and continuous improvement within the buying process. The Senior Buyer serves as the primary escalation point for delivery, quality, or communication issues and provides guidance and support to Buyers.

Essential/Key Functions

Tactical Procurement Leadership:

• Executes daily purchasing activities with a high degree of accuracy, urgency, and ownership.
• Manages complex or high-volume part families requiring tighter control and more frequent supplier communication.
• Oversees PO lifecycle management including placement, confirmations, changes, cancellations, and follow-up.
• Ensures supplier acknowledgements, ship dates, and quantity updates are accurately reflected in the ERP system.
• Monitors and reacts to MRP messages, adjusting orders to support changing production needs.
• Works with Strategic Commodity Manager to place POs with Milacron Preferred Suppliers and make decisions based on cost, lead time, and quality when needed.
• Investigate and fix data where needed on POs.

Supplier Management & Expediting:

• Acts as the primary escalation point for supplier delays, quality issues, or inaccurate confirmations.
• Performs advanced expediting to resolve material shortages and protect production schedules.
• Reviews supplier open order reports, identifies gaps, and implements corrective actions.
• Coordinates with Supplier Quality on non-conformances, RMAs, and repeat issues.
• Ensures updated information is loaded in JDE and communicated across the company.
• Ensures debit memos are created and suppliers are charged back costs when appropriate.
• Assess supplier overall performance with Global Commodity Managers and make recommendations regarding suppliers' ability to meet quality, delivery, and cost needs.

OTD, Inventory & Material Flow Performance:

• Owns day-to-day supplier On-Time Delivery (OTD) performance and drives corrective actions.
• Monitors inventory health, including safety stock, open POs, and slow-moving materials.
• Identifies material risks early and implements mitigation steps to prevent production downtime.
• Reviews forecasts and planned orders to support accurate supplier planning.
• Drives forecasting improvements and supports SIOP alignment.
• Track, prepare, and maintain production levels / PFEP within the organization.
• Maintain A, B, and C classifications by SKU number (PFEP).

Communication & Cross-Functional Support:

• Provides daily communication to Operations, Scheduling, and Logistics on material status.
• Supports ECO transitions by coordinating run-outs, replacements, and phase-ins.
• Resolves shipping discrepancies, freight issues, and packaging concerns.
• Supports OpSys alignment and part structure accuracy.
• Communicate changes to suppliers as needed for ECOs.
• Ensure Part Lead times are correct in JDE.

Process Ownership & Continuous Improvement

• Identifies and recommends improvements to purchasing processes and expediting workflows.
• Supports standardization of procurement tools, reports, and tracking methods.
• Monitors key metrics such as OTD, confirm rate, and shortage counts to drive improvements.
• Participates in short-term problem-solving activities with suppliers (A3, 8D, root-cause reviews).
• Follow and implement departmental policies, goals, objectives, and procedures as necessary.

Coaching & Team Support

• Provides guidance and support to junior Buyers and Planners.
• Assists in training new hires in purchasing processes and ERP/MRP execution.
• Acts as a resource for complex part transitions and supplier issues.
• Works with team to develop and execute category strategies in partnership with Strategic teams.
• Works with Strategic team and Quality for supplier scorecard reviews and corrective action planning, along with risk management.

Minimum (Required) Qualifications:

Education and Experience:

• Bachelor's degree required.
• 3-5 years of purchasing or supply chain experience in a manufacturing environment.
• Strong supplier management and tactical procurement experience.
• Proficiency in ERP/MRP systems (JDE preferred).
• Strong communication and follow-through skills with the ability to handle multiple priorities.
• Ability to work independently and support less experienced team members.
• CPM and/or APICS certification a plus.