Purchasing Specialist, Manufacturing

Our Purchasing Specialist is a key, hands-on member of the Operations and Supply Chain team responsible for developing and managing detailed production schedules while ensuring the materials, ingredients, packaging, and supplies required for production are available when needed. This position balances customer demand, delivery deadlines, inventory availability, labor, equipment capacity, material lead times, and production constraints to create efficient and achievable production schedules. Responsibilities include: Review open sales orders, customer requirements, forecasts, inventory levels, and production capacity to develop daily, weekly, and monthly production schedules. Establish production priorities based on customer requirements, inventory needs, requested delivery dates, material availability, and manufacturing capacity. Create and maintain detailed production schedules for cooking, batching, bottling. Coordinate production requirements across departments to ensure schedules are realistic, achievable, and clearly communicated. Balance production requirements with available labor, equipment, materials, line capacity, changeovers, and other operational constraints. Monitor production activity against established schedules and proactively identify delays, bottlenecks, shortages, or other issues that could impact customer commitments. Adjust production schedules as necessary due to equipment downtime, material shortages, quality issues, staffing constraints, changing customer priorities, or other production disruptions. Coordinate with Warehouse Operations to ensure materials are staged and available to support scheduled production. Communicate schedule changes, production priorities, and potential delivery concerns to appropriate departments in a timely manner. Review production schedules, inventory levels, open purchase orders, material lead times, and upcoming requirements to identify purchasing needs. Ensure adequate inventory is available without creating unnecessary excess inventory. Generate purchase orders based on production demand, inventory levels, lead times, and established inventory targets. Communicate with suppliers regarding purchase orders, delivery dates, quantities, shortages, and changes in production requirements. Monitor open purchase orders and proactively expedite suppliers when materials are required to support production schedules. Source alternative materials or suppliers when availability, lead time, pricing, or other supply-chain issues create production risk. Conduct supplier pricing reviews and identify opportunities for improved pricing, lead times, minimum order quantities, freight, and purchasing terms. Maintain accurate purchasing, supplier, lead-time, and material information within the ERP system. Utilize the ERP system to manage production scheduling, inventory requirements, purchasing activities, manufacturing work orders, and material requirements. Generate and release manufacturing work orders/requisitions to Warehouse Operations for material picking and staging. Qualifications The successful candidate will possess: Minimum of 1 year of recent manufacturing experience involving purchasing of raw ingredients, materials, production processes, inventory, quality control, costs, or other functions related to the effective manufacture and distribution of goods. Minimum of 1 year of recent production planning or scheduling experience within a manufacturing environment. Purchasing, procurement, inventory planning, or supplier-management experience preferred. Working knowledge of manufacturing processes, production scheduling, inventory management, material requirements, and warehouse operations. Experience working with ERP/MRP systems in a manufacturing environment is required. NetSuite experience ideal. Strong computer skills, including proficiency with Microsoft Office applications, particularly Excel. Strong mathematical and analytical skills with the ability to work with production q…

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