Category Manager

Graco manufactures and markets premium equipment to move, measure, control, dispense and spray a wide variety of fluid and powder materials. What does that mean? Well, we pump peanut butter into your jar, and the oil in your car. We glue the soles of your shoes, the glass in your windows and the screen on your phone. We spray the finish on your vehicle, coatings on your pills, the paint on your house and texture on your walls. Graco is part of your daily life.

Oversee global supplier relationships to ensure strategic alignment and sustainability.  Manage suppliers to continuously improve quality, delivery, and price to support operations.  Develop the castings sourcing strategy, identify new suppliers, and drive productivity to mitigate supply chain risks.  Network with Graco’s Operations and Engineering groups to build a strong project funnel and support new product development. The Category Manager will also be responsible for driving material costs down, supplier terms improvement, and collaborating with other internal functions to meet customer requirements.

What You Will Do at Graco

•  Partner with key stakeholders to create and deploy global sourcing strategies to drive world class castings supply chain performance.  Align supply chain commodities and strategy to objectives for sustaining production, new product development, and research & development activities

• Create and manage strategic supplier partnerships to ensure continuous performance expectations are met and year over year productivity targets are achieved by conducting proper supplier management techniques.

• Lead key negotiations and contract development, support strategic sourcing and VA/VE initiatives and drive project implementations with functional groups and suppliers.

• Early engage in NPD development phase, identify, and mitigate supply chain risks, meet target costs, and support new product launches on time

• Understand the Castings market and supplier base thoroughly, work closely with Engineering to influence design decisions to meet technical capabilities, cost, and business objectives.

• Build partnerships and develop relationships with key category suppliers and subcategory suppliers), function as subject matter expert for castings and manufacturing processes in both technical aspects and overall industry knowledge

• Work with Engineering to develop / align castings sourcing roadmaps to long term sourcing strategies.

• Proactively manage supply chain risk and product EOL to ensure supply chain continuity.

• Conduct and lead business reviews with key suppliers.

• Execute strategic supply agreement on ensuring supply continuity, establish a strategic approved vendor program for key components.

• Lead RFQ and quote analysis, supplier auctions, evaluates vendor capability, quality, reliability, and price competitiveness.

• Keep current on commodity market, cost drivers and economic outlook to guide strategy, perform data analysis on commodity spend, supplier performance and market intelligence.

• Develop and implement long-term commodity strategies to lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and offer world class customer service to key stakeholders, make vs. buy analysis

• Oversee suppliers to continuously improve quality, cost, delivery, and service to support supply chain operations

• Mentor and develop procurement staff supporting the castings commodity.

What You Will Bring to Graco

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Engineering, Materials Management, Supply Chain or equivalent required.

• 3+ years of experience within category management and strategic sourcing.

• Experience in developing and executing commodity strategies.

• Demonstrates experience and results in negotiating with suppliers on master supply agreements, inventory agreements etc.

• Have sense of urgency and be a self-directed leader, excels in a team environment, engage cross functional teams to deliver results.

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.

• PC and related software (Word, Excel, Access, Database Management etc.) experience.

• Ability to perform detailed corporate category studies and market research worldwide.

• Interpersonal skills to correspond effectively with all levels of the organization.

• Strong negotiation skil