Strategic Sourcing and Materials Manager

 

Job Tittle: Strategic Sourcing and Materials

Manager

Classification: Exempt Regular Employee

Department: Supply Chain Reports to: Supply Chain Director

General Purpose

The Strategic Sourcing and Materials Manager oversees all the activities involved in Material Management,

Sourcing and Procurement, to achieve the company’s vision and mission focused in 6 key elements:

1. Operational Material Availability & Production Continuity

Guarantees uninterrupted production by maintaining 100% material availability, eliminating

stockouts and showstoppers, enforcing OTIF discipline, and implementing proactive replenishment

and forecasting processes.

2. Inventory Excellence & Working Capital Optimization

Optimizes Inventory Turns, reduces Excess & Obsolete, controls material coverage, and aligns

inventory strategies with consumption behavior and production demand.

Ensures healthy, efficient inventory that supports operations without tying unnecessary capital.

3. Total Cost Leadership

Encompasses Cost Reduction, Cost Avoidance, Cost Optimization, and Total Landed Cost

improvements.

Focuses on driving measurable and sustainable financial impact across materials, logistics, product

design and supplier negotiations.

4. Supplier Reliability & Continuity

Ensures suppliers consistently meet or exceed expectations in Lead Times, Service Levels,

Capacity, Pay Terms, SLA compliance, and delivery accuracy. Drives stable and predictable

operations, minimizing variability and reactive firefighting.

5. Strategic Supplier Portfolio & Risk Management

Develops a balanced and resilient supplier base by managing Primary, Secondary and Threat

Suppliers, country diversification, capacity risk, geopolitical exposure, and contingency plans.

Prevents dependency and ensures continuous supply under any scenario.

6. Product & BOM Simplification / Value Engineering

Partners with R&D and Engineering to simplify products, standardize components, rationalize

SKUs, consolidate lengths and materials, and improve manufacturability. Drives structural cost

improvements and increases leverage in procurement.

Supervision Responsibilities

• Oversee the daily workflow and schedule of the purchasing and materials team.

• Evaluates the performance of the purchasing and materials team.

• Handles discipline within the area, according to the company policy.

• Hires or trains departmental planner buyers.

• Coaches the team in best practices of demand planning, supplier communication, inventory

optimization and warehouse discipline.

• Establishes a culture of accountability and urgency (“No surprises, no showstoppers”).

 

 

General Responsibilities:

• Collaborate with other departments and stakeholders to identify and maintain resources needed

to establish and provide an effective supply chain support.

• Develop and maintain a well-coordinated internal relationship with key decision makers and the

rest of the organization.

• Understanding of Supply Chain related processes with the intent to lead working on continuous

improvement ideas with cross functional partners.

• Lead the S&OP alignment between Sales, Operations and Supply Chain to ensure proactive

planning.

• Develop strategies to balance material availability vs inventory turns (service vs cost).

• Identify risks and develop mitigation plans proactively across suppliers, materials and logistics.

• Drive continuous improvement initiatives using Lean/TPS methodology in purchasing, materials

and warehouse.

Sourcing Responsibilities:

• Plan, assign resources, evaluate, follow up, implement, and provide feedback/results on project

initiatives that will support the materials, MRO, and logistics team to optimize inventories, reduce

costs, improve quality and service level agreement within the end-to-end vendor management.

• Own the end-to-end vendor management process and systems for data center maintenance.

• Define and analyze metrics that inform the success of standard implementation.

• Selects, evaluates, and manages vendor partnerships to achieve business goals.

• Negotiates better contracts with existing suppliers as well as sourcing new suppliers, always taking

into consideration:

– Quality (ECOs - Part Standardization and Product Development)

– Cost Deflation (Material Negotiations and ECOs - Part Standardization and Product

Development)

– Service (Lead Time, Pay Terms, Inventory Consignment. Other)

– Diversification (Primary, Secondary, Third = Threat Options)

• Establish effective communication channels with customers, vendors, suppliers, and shipping

companies.

• Ensures compliance with imports, and shipment regulations along our different Suppliers.

– Documents on Time

– Documents of Quality

• Manages the organization's logistics (transportation) initiatives and budgets considering:

– Quality and Service

– Cost

• Measures the Vendors performance throughout KPIS of On Time, In Full and Quality and reviews

the results with each Key Vendors every quarter and the end of Fiscal Year.

• Oversees the MRB Process to ensure every Quality issue is claimed and compensated according to

each Vendor Terms within Air Master.

• Supports staff resolving problems related to poor service or poor quality from vendors.

• Implements existing and new standards related to vendor management across data centers.

• Align written policies and standards with functional areas to ensure adherence is consistent across

data centers.

• Lead supplier business reviews (quarterly) and enforce penalties or recovery actions when service

or quality targets are not met.

 

 

• Lead cost-reduction roadmaps and ensure measurable savings through contract negotiation, SKU

simplification, and volume consolidation.

• Challenge Product Reefinering projects to reduce BOM complexity (e.g., consolidate screws from

18 → 3, reduce aluminum lengths from 6 → 2).

• Implement Vendor Stocking Programs / Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) for critical materials.

• Develop long-term strategic partnerships to secure capacity, price stability, and service reliability.

Materials Responsibilities:

• Plan, assign resources, evaluate, follow up, implement, and provide feedback/results on project

initiatives that will support the materials, MRO, and logistics team to optimize inventories,

eliminating showstoppers, reducing stockouts, control excess inventory and increase inventory

turns.

• Determine risk management plans related to materials procurement, logistics, and staffing.

• Establish effective communication channels with our Logistics Partners to control demurrages,

document control and unloading containers.

• Plan and implement Special Burn Projects to decrease Excess Inventories within A, B, C and

Obsolete/Special Parts.

• Analize, re-design and implement standard operating procedures to improve the material

management within the Warehouse.

• Maintain information of quality within the system according to the Standard Costs, Lead Times,

Safety Stocks, Replenishment Quantities, Minimum Order Quantities, Replenishment Quantities,

Default Vendor, Secondary Vendor.

• Own end-to-end replenishment process of certain commodities.

• Execute Statistical Analysis such as:

– Part Coverage vs Open Purchase Orders vs Lead Times vs Expiration Dates (push outs, pull

ins, cancellations, new Pos, and expedition).

– Safety Stocks and Weekly Usages.

– A, B, C, E and Obsolete Parts based on Cost and Sales in Dollars.

– Forecasting on Part Consumptions based on Usages, Sales Forecasts and Production Lines

Capacities.

• Smart Sheets control:

– Create ECO suggestions for part numbers.

– Create Deviations to control a temporal Stockout/ShowStoppers.

– Complete the materials role in ECOS originated from R/D.

• Lead Daily meetings to review Key activities within the materials team.

• Lead Weekly Meetings to review standard procedures of controlling deficits and reducing excesses.

• Participate in Weekly and Monthly meetings with Sales and Operations to ensure Supply Chain

material procurement.

• Ensure 100% material availability to production through proactive planning and supplier follow-up

(no line stops tolerated).

• Coordinate Warehouse best practices: receiving standards, inspection, FIFO/FEFO, labeling,

storage optimization, bin accuracy and cycle counts.

• Lead Inventory Accuracy initiatives (Cycle Count, Physical Count, reconciliation of variances).

• Implement Kanban and Pull-Replenishment where applicable.

• Lead BOM simplification and standardization efforts with R&D to reduce SKU count, reduce long

tails, improve purchasing leverage and reduce production complexity.

 

 

• Lead change management related to new materials, new vendors and ECOs (training, phasing-in,

phasing-out).

• Develop a mid- and long-term procurement strategy aligned to growth, product roadmap and

capacity plans.

• Ensure all planners maintain accurate data in the system (LT, MOQ, SS, vendor, costs,

replenishment logic, etc.).

KPIs the Manager Owns

1. Supplier OTIF (On Time / In Full)

2. Quality & MRB Recovery

3. Inventory Turns

4. Excess & Obsolete Inventory Reduction

5. Material Forecast Budget Adherence

6. Stockouts / Showstoppers

7. Cost Management (Cost Reduction, Cost Avoidance, Cost Optimization)

8. ECO implementation for Product Reengineering

9. Warehouse Accuracy

Minimum Requirements:

• BA/BS in Business Administration, Purchasing, and/or Material Management.

• Previous experience as a Material Planner - 3 years minimum

• Previous experience in a made to order/make to stock manufacturing environment processing raw material and producing finished goods.

• Excellent communication and negotiation skills.

• Completely bilingual: Spanish / English

• Domain of information systems including Microsoft Office and MRP systems.

• APICS certification preferred or willing to earn certification during employment.

• Lead and support the technical development of innovative work planning and vendor management standards, policies, and guidance.

• Know and be able to own the end-to-end vendor management process and systems globally for data center maintenance, related to labor and service.

• Experience in writing standards and policies. Skills:

• Verbal and written communication skills, attention to detail, negotiation skills and interpersonal skills.

• Word processing expertise required.

• Ability to analyze dashboards, reports, proposals, and other technical data.

• Ability to generate data driven visualizations in PowerBI/Excel.

• Ability to accurately document and record customer/client information.

• Knowledge of applicable laws and regulations related to purchasing.

• Knowledge of supply chain management.

• Previous experience with computer applications, such as Microsoft Word and Excel.

• Able to work in an environment that is constantly changing, and not well defined.

Physical Requirements and Working Environment: (The requirements described below represent the

conditions that must be met to successfully exercise the position. Reasonable accommodation could be

made to ensure that individuals who have an impairment succeed in performing the functions of the

position.)

 

 

• You are required to be able to speak, listen, see, and use their hands.

• Ability to move or drive up to 25 pounds of weight without assistance.

• The job requires 85% of the sitting time.