About Us:

BW Converting is a strategic alliance of resources and services that bring together several Barry-Wehmiller companies — Paper Converting Machine Company (PCMC), Winkler + Dünnebier (W+D), STAX Technologies, Hudson-Sharp, Baldwin Technologies and Northern Engraving and Machine. These industry leaders offer trusted brands and innovative technologies in the design, manufacture, and service of high-performance converting and packaging machinery for the tissue, nonwovens, hygiene, bag-converting, mailing, and printing industries.

 

Barry-Wehmiller is a diversified global supplier of engineering consulting and manufacturing technology for the packaging, corrugating, sheeting and paper-converting industries. By blending people-centric leadership with disciplined operational strategies and purpose-driven growth, Barry-Wehmiller has become a $3 billion organization with nearly 12,000 team members united by a common belief: to use the power of business to build a better world.

 

Job Description:

The Global Platform Commodity Leader: Mechanical is responsible for developing and executing the mechanical commodity strategy across all BW Converting sites. This platform-level sourcing leadership role will leverage global spend, establish preferred supplier strategies, improve commercial performance, reduce supply risk, and support consistent sourcing practices throughout BW Converting.  The annual spend under strategic management for this role is around $100M USD.

The Commodity Leader will provide strategic direction for assigned mechanical categories while partnering with site procurement teams that retain responsibility for local purchasing execution, transactional activities, material availability, and day-to-day supplier coordination.

This position will work across Supply Chain, Engineering, Manufacturing, Quality, Finance, Project Management, Service, and other functions to improve total cost, quality, delivery, working capital, supplier capability, and continuity of supply.  This will include working alongside the Enterprise Sourcing team based in St. Louis, along with the functions at our 5 main manufacturing sites + aftermarket/small manufacturing locations.

Key Responsibilities:

• Develop and implement a comprehensive global commodity strategy for assigned mechanical categories across BW Converting.
• Create category roadmaps addressing supplier segmentation, sourcing regions, cost competitiveness, technical capability, capacity, quality, delivery, lead time, and continuity of supply.
• Analyze platform-wide spend and demand to identify opportunities to leverage common requirements across sites.
• Establish and maintain the platform preferred supplier strategy, including supplier rationalization and Grow, Maintain, Develop, or Exit recommendations.
• Lead supplier selection, qualification, development, performance evaluation, and strategic business reviews in partnership with Quality, Engineering, Manufacturing, and site procurement teams.
• Lead competitive sourcing events and negotiate long-term agreements, memoranda of understanding, pricing agreements, rebates, payment terms, warranty provisions, and other commercial arrangements.
• Deliver measurable productivity, cost-out, cost avoidance, inflation mitigation, and working-capital improvements using total-cost-of-ownership principles.
• Identify opportunities through supplier consolidation, competitive bidding, localization, low-cost-country sourcing, value analysis and value engineering, specification alignment, and demand aggregation.
• Partner with Finance to validate savings and provide commodity-market outlooks, supplier pricing projections, commercial risks, and budget inputs.
• Serve as the platform commodity expert and strategic point of contact for assigned mechanical categories.
• Partner with site Buyers, Planners, and Supply Chain leaders to implement the platform strategy while preserving local responsibility for transactional execution and immediate operational needs.
• Work with Engineering to support component standardization, preferred technology selection, design simplification, early supplier involvement, new product development, supplier transitions, and engineering changes.
• Identify and manage supplier, geopolitical, tariff, logistics, capacity, financial, quality, and single-source risks and develop practical mitigation plans.
• Establish and track commodity-level performance measures, including savings, supplier quality, on-time delivery, lead-time improvement, working-capital impact, preferred-supplier utilization, and supplier-base reduction.
• Provide regular updates to the Senior Leader, Strategic Sourcing and other platform stakeholders on progress, risks, barriers, and required decisions.
• Perform other duties a