Purchasing Operations Specialist
About the position As a leading industrial distributor with operations primarily in North America, Japan and the United Kingdom, We Keep The World Working® by serving more than 4.5 million customers worldwide with products delivered through innovative technology and deep customer relationships. With 2023 sales of $16.5 billion, we’re dedicated to providing value for customers, fostering an engaging culture for team members and driving strong financial results. Our welcoming workplace enables you to learn, grow and make a difference by keeping businesses running and their people safe. We’re looking for passionate people to join our team as we continue leading the industry over our next 100 years. PRIMARY FUNCTION The Purchasing Operations Specialist is responsible for all assigned duties including but not limited to; maintaining/updating current expected ship dates, receipts corrections/adjustments, manage requirements documents, and large order processing and follow-up for all assigned Vendors. They provide credible useful information to allow multiple cross functional teams impacted by Past Due Purchase Orders, GRIR issues and Large Orders to deliver a better service promise. The OMS is the key contact for Vendors and their assigned Category Purchasing Manager (CPM), Supplier Performance Analyst (SPA), DC inbounds teams, Accounts Payable and Product Manager (PM). OMS will work all assigned Vendor issues, including past dues line follow-up, DC receipts and/or proactively work potential past due POs to help vendors to resolves short term (transactional) issues in a timely manner. Responsibilities • Manage Purchase Orders, Inbound Receipts, Requirements Documents and Large Orders as assigned. • PO Maintenance (SAP)- maintain updates to PO lines for assigned Vendors and those parsed to other team members • Identify problem PO lines that have gone beyond the requested ship date and determine appropriate action. • Assure back-ups are coordinated during vacation time. • Contact suppliers to determine cause of delays, update information by revising data in SAP for other users and keep record of all communications within the PO. • Report out to the appropriate teams any long-term systemic issues identified • Update discontinued and pricing database spreadsheets with newly identified Skus for communication to SPAs and PM teams. • Work with DC and AP teams to quickly resolve inbound receipt issues and provide actionable information to drive long term solutions. • Maintain assigned team info of throughput of workload and performance of each vendor or DC by Expeditor • Review and approve reqs which do not meet specified criteria • Work with Customer Service to provide value in Large Order processing to avoid availability issues and save handling and shipping cost by shipping direct, when possible, to Customer. • Work to find process improvements and drive best practices behavior with Customer Service teams. Requirements • BS/BA or equivalent experience preferred. • Ability to foster, manage and leverage relationships at varying levels internally & externally. • Excellent verbal and written communication skills. • Strong interpersonal skills that foster collaboration with team, business partners and cross-functional teams. • Systemic thinking and problem solving. Ability to influence decisions with teams without direct management responsibility. • Demonstrated ability to multitask, quickly learn and become competent in, and effectively apply new skills. • Proficient in Excel, Access and/or other database and reporting tools. • Exposure to business disciplines outside of Purchasing is desirable. • Exposure to SAP desirable. Apply tot his job