Category Sourcing Leader

Company Description

A thriving environment for learning, innovation, and growth.

Why do so many people join MTS Systems Corporation and stay for a career? Because this is a place where you get to apply your creativity, work with smart people on fascinating projects, and make a positive impact on people’s lives. It is a place where you can learn, innovate, and grow professionally.

MTS Systems creates some of the world’s highest performance mechanical testing systems for customers that include Formula 1 teams, leading automotive and aerospace companies and the world’s leading researchers in materials, seismic and other engineering disciplines. Our control software enables these systems to achieve extremely high levels of physical simulation fidelity and performance by enabling advanced controls, data acquisition and modeling capabilities. This role is an opportunity to have a major impact on the current and future real-time control software that powers these leading-edge systems and machines.

Job Description

Responsible for developing and implementing sourcing strategies that optimize business partnerships with strategic suppliers that drives required performance objectives in quality, delivery, and cost for assigned commodities. Direct responsibility for supplier selection, contract and price negotiations, supplier performance management, and problem resolution.

Major Areas of Accountability:

1. Develop, communicate, and execute commodity strategy throughout the organization by planning, organizing, and controlling strategic activities to provide a competitive advantage in best value, lead-time, service, quality, and technology
2. Locate, analyze, and develop a consolidated best-in-class supplier base to meet current and future commodity needs. Focus on best value country, spend under contract, and total landed cost and/or total cost ownership
3. Define an annual plan that consists of key projects to support commodity strategies and gain support from stakeholders. Responsible to track, communicate, and execute projects to plan
4. Provide commodity knowledge and market expertise for assigned commodity and continuously learn new technologies, processes, regions, and industry best practices
5. Understand and track the key input cost drivers and market factors for assigned commodities, provides countermeasure concepts, forecasts, and maintain costing and “should-be cost model”
6. Direct and lead the negotiation and management of contracts/agreements for assigned commodities with medium- to high-risk/complexity. Assign, lead, provide direction, guidance, and coaching to the team on low- to medium-complexity negotiations
7. Provide escalation support to the procurement team for all major part(s) shortage(s) and continuity issues within your commodity base. Develop, monitor, and perform countermeasure plans and escalate to the Director of Global Sourcing prior to any major impacts on production or revenue
8. Define, train, and lead an RFX (RFI, RFP, RFQ) process for assigned products that delivers best value on high dollar items, critical parts, and large-scale quoting projects
9. Ensure relationship, development, and management of Key Supplier Leadership including integrated strategic plans and on-going cross-organizational continuous improvement efforts through QBRs
10. Lead new Supplier Selection process to incorporate new technologies, strategic advantages, cost down initiatives, lead-time reduction, and prevent dispersion of spend to non-strategic suppliers 
11. Exercise strong communication skills to ensure alignment with product management, engineering, and operations teams during implementation of commodity strategies. Ensure you are delivering competitive enablers for the business by providing the highest performing and lowest total cost solutions in support of commercial teams
12. Manage assigned category portfolio and aggressively seeks opportunities for cost containment and/or improvement.  Develop performance metrics for the materials category. Benchmark and utilize best practices sourcing within the category portfolio

• Negotiate complex agreements with global suppliers that may include protection of IP, co-development, technology partnerships etc. Develop contingency plans to mitigate risk of non-performance of sole-sourced vendors. Additionally, negotiate blanket contracts to maximize savings over multiple years of spend, including performance clauses and all other terms and conditions
• Develop category sourcing plans and lead resources in the identification of potential suppliers, requirements documentation, RFI and RFQs, bid and price analysis, negotiation and contract award, and supplier performance management
• Communicate category specific metrics, leading indicator data, and external market factors that could impac