Sr. Materials Manager

• Develop and execute the materials management strategy to support business growth, customer satisfaction, inventory optimization, and operational excellence.
• Lead the end-to-end materials organization, ensuring alignment of planning, procurement, inventory, warehousing, and production scheduling activities.
• Establish annual objectives, key performance indicators, and improvement roadmaps for the materials function.
• Drive improvements in customer delivery performance, inventory turns, schedule attainment, supplier performance, material availability, and working capital.
• Evaluate supply chain risks and develop mitigation strategies to ensure business continuity.
• Provide data-driven recommendations regarding inventory strategy, supplier capacity, outsourcing, make-versus-buy decisions, and operational investments.
• Partner with executive leadership on strategic planning, growth initiatives, operational transformations, and capital planning activities.
• Master Scheduling & Schedule Governance
• Serve as the business Master Scheduler and maintain ownership of the integrated Master Production Schedule (MPS).
• Translate customer orders, forecasts, backlog, intercompany demand, inventory requirements, and business priorities into executable production plans.
• Establish and manage scheduling horizons, planning time fences, and governance processes.
• Ensure the production schedule reflects demonstrated manufacturing capacity, labor availability, equipment constraints, material availability, and operational priorities.
• Lead schedule review meetings and communicate risks, priorities, constraints, and recovery plans across the organization.
• Measure and improve schedule stability, adherence, and execution performance.
• Serve as the final escalation point for priority conflicts and scheduling decisions.

• Lead the planning organization in converting approved schedules into executable production requirements.
• Ensure alignment between customer demand, material availability, production capacity, and manufacturing constraints.
• Partner with Operations and Industrial Engineering to maintain capacity models for critical manufacturing processes.
• Identify future capacity constraints and develop mitigation strategies.
• Drive planning processes that optimize throughput, inventory investment, and customer delivery performance.
• Support scenario planning for demand fluctuations, business growth, staffing requirements, and capital investments.

• Provide leadership and direction for all procurement and purchasing activities.
• Ensure purchasing priorities align with production plans, customer commitments, inventory strategies, and supplier capabilities.
• Develop supplier performance management processes focused on quality, delivery, responsiveness, cost, and capacity.
• Establish strategic supplier relationships and support negotiations related to pricing, lead times, agreements, and commercial terms.
• Lead supply continuity, dual-source, and risk-reduction initiatives.
• Partner with Engineering and Quality on supplier qualification, corrective actions, and supplier development efforts.

• Lead all receiving, warehousing, material control, inventory accuracy, and material movement activities.
• Establish inventory policies for raw materials, work-in-process, finished goods, safety stock, and strategic inventory buffers.
• Drive improvements in inventory accuracy, inventory turns, working capital performance, and warehouse efficiency.
• Ensure effective lot traceability, material status control, shelf-life management, and compliance with quality requirements.
• Optimize warehouse layout, storage practices, and material flow to support manufacturing execution.
• Lead initiatives to reduce excess, obsolete, and slow-moving inventory.

• Serve as the executive functional owner of materials planning and scheduling processes within the ERP system.
• Ensure ERP and MRP processes support the approved Master Production Schedule and business priorities.
• Maintain planning parameters including lead times, lot sizes, safety stock levels, supplier lead times, planning calendars, and capacity assumptions.
• Drive continuous improvement in ERP utilization, data integrity, and overall planning effectiveness.
• Lead efforts to reduce reliance on manual processes and disconnected spreadsheets.
• Develop dashboards and performance reporting related to demand, supply, inventory, supplier performance, schedule attainment, and operational risk.

• Serve as a key operational leader within the Sales, Inventory, and Operations Planning (SIOP) process.
• Translate approved demand forecasts into integrated production, procurement, inventory, and capacity plans.
• Lead analysis and presentation of inventory, supply, capacity, and fulfillment scenarios to leadership.
• Identify future risks related to supplier capacity, inventory, labor, equipment, and manufacturing resources.
• Support strategic decision-making through detailed demand and capacity analysis.
• Recommend appropriate lead times and fulfillment strategies based on business conditions and operational performance.

• Lead, coach, and develop planners, buyers, schedulers, warehouse personnel, material-control specialists, and future materials leaders.
• Establish clear accountability, performance expectations, and development plans across the organization.
• Create a high-performance culture focused on teamwork, customer service, accountability, continuous improvement, and business results.
• Develop succession plans and build organizational capability to support future growth.
• Drive employee engagement, professional development, and cross-functional collaboration.

• Lead regular materials reviews with Operations, Engineering, Sales, Quality, Finance, and Continuous Improvement.
• Establish fact-based processes for prioritization, resource allocation, and decision-making.
• Provide early visibility of delivery risks and lead cross-functional mitigation efforts.
• Support new product introductions, engineering changes, and production transfers.
• Drive improvements in lead time, inventory performance, supplier performance, and manufacturing responsiveness.
• Lead root-cause analysis and corrective actions related to planning, procurement, inventory, and schedule performance.

• Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain Management, Operations Management, Industrial Engineering, Business, Engineering, or a related discipline.
• Typically 8+ years of progressive leadership experience in materials management, supply chain, planning, procurement, scheduling, inventory management, and manufacturing operations.
• Demonstrated experience leading an integrated materials organization within a manufacturing environment.
• Demonstrated ownership of Master Production Scheduling and MRP-driven planning processes.
• Experience leading cross-functional teams and driving organizational performance improvements.
• Strong knowledge of MPS, MRP, ERP systems, inventory management, procurement, supply planning, warehousing, and capacity planning.
• Strong analytical, financial, problem-solving, leadership, and communication skills.
• Proven ability to influence decision-making across multiple organizational levels.
• Experience presenting operational strategies and business recommendations to senior leadership.

• Master's degree in Business Administration, Supply Chain, Operations Management, Engineering, or related field.
• APICS/ASCM certifications such as CPIM, CSCP, or CLTD.
• Experience with Epicor ERP or similar manufacturing ERP systems.
• Experience in low-volume, high-mix manufacturing environments.
• Experience supporting significant business growth, operational transformation, or ERP implementation initiatives.
• Experience managing complex manufacturing constraints and extended production lead times.
• Lean Manufacturing and Continuous Improvement experience.

Leadership Competencies