Procurement Lead
Overview:
StaffBuffalo is working with a growing engineered-to-order manufacturing organization to hire a Procurement Lead. This role is a key supply chain leadership position focused on improving material availability, supplier accountability, inventory data quality, freight strategy, and sourcing structure across a complex production environment.
The Procurement Lead will own the accuracy of purchasing and inventory master data in the ERP system, including reorder points, lead times, safety stock, min/max levels, and new part setup. This person will also be accountable for supplier on-time delivery, expedite visibility, obsolete stock disposition, supply risk planning, and the weekly data needed to help operations identify issues before they disrupt production.
This role also includes ownership of freight carrier relationships, pre-negotiated rate frameworks, outsourced production vendor development, supplier scorecards, and cost reduction initiatives. Direct industry experience is ideal, especially with engineered products, industrial equipment, water, wastewater, strainers, heat exchangers, or similar applications. The client is also open to strong candidates from engineered-to-order manufacturing environments who understand complex parts, supplier constraints, changing demand signals, and production-critical purchasing.
Responsibilities:
- Own inventory master data quality in the ERP system, including part records, reorder points, lead times, safety stock, min/max levels, and new part setup
- Reduce material-driven production disruptions by improving procurement planning, supplier follow-up, expedite visibility, and stockout root-cause analysis
- Publish and maintain weekly expedite reporting, flag potential delays, and provide proactive mitigation steps to planning, production, and project stakeholders
- Manage supplier performance, inbound on-time delivery, corrective actions, cost reduction efforts, supplier reviews, and scorecards tied to quality and delivery expectations
- Own freight carrier sourcing, rate negotiations, carrier agreements, preferred carrier lists, and pre-negotiated freight rate frameworks for inbound and outbound shipments
- Develop an outsourced production vendor framework, including a capability matrix across fabrication, machining, assembly, and surface finishing support
- Build supply risk mitigation plans for critical items and single-source suppliers, including secondary sourcing, contingency planning, and quantified risk reporting
Qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain, Operations, Business, Engineering, or a related field preferred
- 5+ years of procurement, sourcing, supply chain, inventory management, or supplier management experience in a manufacturing environment
- Experience in engineered-to-order, build-to-order, custom equipment, industrial products, or other complex manufacturing environments strongly preferred
- Strong ERP experience with purchasing, inventory records, material planning, lead times, reorder points, and data accuracy, NetSuite experience is a plus
- Demonstrated ability to negotiate supplier terms, freight carrier agreements, pricing, rate frameworks, and long-term supply arrangements
- Analytical problem-solving skills with experience using procurement data, buy analysis, supplier metrics, cost benchmarking, and root-cause analysis
- Strong communication and influence skills with the ability to work across production, planning, shipping and receiving, engineering, quality, suppliers, and leadership
Benefits:
- Salary range of $90,000 - $130,000 with meaningful long-term growth potential
- High-impact role with ownership of procurement systems, supplier strategy, freight frameworks, and supply risk planning
- Opportunity to build structure in a growing manufacturing environment where procurement directly supports production success
- Visibility across operations, planning, production, quality, shipping and receiving, and leadership
- Ability to develop supplier partnerships, outsourced vendor capacity, and cost reduction strategies that support company growth
- Collaborative team environment focused on continuous improvement, accountability, and practical problem solving
- Stable manufacturing organization with strong product quality, customer relationships, and operational growth goals
\#INDSBHIGH
The advertised pay range represents what we believe at the time of this job posting, that our client would be willing to pay for this position. Only in special circumstances, where a candidate has education, training, or experience that far exceeds the requirements for the position, would we consider paying higher than the stated range.
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