Materials Management Supervisor

Position Summary 

The Materials Management Supervisor is responsible for leading day-to-day procurement and inventory management activities supporting manufacturing operations. This position supervises purchasing personnel and is accountable for ensuring the timely availability of raw materials, APIs, excipients, packaging components, consumables, and other assigned materials while maintaining appropriate inventory levels and supporting working-capital objectives.

The Materials Management Supervisor works closely with Planning, Manufacturing, Quality, Warehouse, Engineering, Finance, and Strategic Sourcing to ensure continuity of supply, supplier performance, inventory optimization, and compliance with applicable cGMP requirements and company procedures.

The position serves as the primary operational link between purchasing, inventory management, and production planning and is responsible for identifying and resolving material shortages and supply risks that could impact the manufacturing schedule.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

• Purchasing & Supplier Management
• Supervise and provide day-to-day direction to Buyers, Senior Buyers, and/or Procurement Specialists.
• Ensure purchase orders are placed accurately and in accordance with MRP requirements, production schedules, inventory policies, and approved supplier agreements.
• Monitor open purchase orders, supplier confirmations, delivery dates, past-due orders, and material shortages.
• Lead escalation and resolution of supplier delivery and material availability issues.
• Manage supplier relationships for assigned materials and categories.
• Negotiate pricing, lead times, minimum order quantities, payment terms, and other commercial conditions.
• Support strategic sourcing, cost-reduction, supplier-consolidation, and dual-sourcing initiatives.
• Monitor supplier performance, including on-time delivery, lead-time adherence, responsiveness, quality performance, and service levels.
• Participate in supplier business reviews and supplier performance improvement initiatives.

Inventory Management

• Monitor inventory levels for raw materials, APIs, excipients, packaging components, consumables, and other assigned materials.
• Ensure inventory levels appropriately support production requirements while minimizing excess working capital.
• Monitor and optimize safety stocks, reorder points, order quantities, lead times, and inventory parameters.
• Review MRP recommendations and purchasing signals to ensure alignment with actual demand and supply conditions.
• Identify and proactively manage excess, obsolete, and slow-moving inventory (E&O/SLOB).
• Develop action plans to reduce inventory exposure and prevent future excess and obsolete inventory.
• Monitor inventory turns, days on hand, inventory value, material shortages, and inventory-at-risk.
• Partner with Planning and Manufacturing to align purchasing decisions with forecasts, production schedules, and changes in demand.
• Coordinate disposition activities for rejected, expired, obsolete, or discontinued materials in partnership with Quality, Finance, and Warehouse Operations.

Material Availability & Supply Risk

• Maintain visibility of critical material requirements and potential supply constraints.
• Lead material shortage reviews and coordinate recovery plans with suppliers and internal stakeholders.
• Identify single-source, long-lead-time, capacity-constrained, and other high-risk materials.
• Support development of risk-mitigation strategies including safety-stock adjustments, alternate suppliers, dual sourcing, and lead-time reduction.
• Escalate significant supply risks to Procurement and Supply Chain Management.
• Work cross-functionally to minimize manufacturing disruptions caused by material shortages.

GMP & Compliance

• Ensure purchasing activities are performed in accordance with company SOPs, approved supplier requirements, Quality Agreements, and applicable GMP requirements.
• Partner with Quality and Supplier Quality on supplier qualification, supplier changes, deviations, CAPAs, and supplier performance issues.
• Ensure materials are purchased only from appropriately approved suppliers when required.
• Maintain accurate purchasing documentation and records to support internal, customer, and regulatory audits.
• Participate in investigations and corrective actions related to supplier or material-related issues.
• Support change-control activities associated with suppliers, materials, specifications, manufacturing sites, or sourcing changes.

Team Leadership

• Supervise, coach, and develop purchasing personnel.
• Establish priorities and balance workloads across the purchasing team.
• Monitor individual and team performance against established objectives and KPIs.
• Provide training and mentoring in purchasing practices, ERP/MRP processes, supplier management, inventory management, and GMP requirements.
• Conduct regular one-on-one meetings and performance discussions.
• Identify opportunities to improve processes, standard work, systems, and team capabilities.
• Serve as the first level of escalation for purchasing and supplier-related operational issues

Knowledge & Skills

• Broad management experience across several functional areas or businesses or concentrated knowledge of a particular discipline; considered the organization’s expert within a particular discipline.
• Experience in purchasing or other materials management field. 
• Strong negotiation, supplier management, and commercial analysis capability, with ability to balance cost, quality, service, and supply assurance.
• Comfortable operating across direct materials, single-use/process consumables, technical services, and site-critical supply issues.
• Strong stakeholder management and influence skills; able to work cross-functionally and drive decisions without direct authority.
• Strong risk-management capability, including alternate-source development, continuity planning, and supplier escalation/recovery management.
• Working knowledge of ERP systems and Microsoft Office applications; comfort with KPI tracking, reporting, and presenting recommendations to leadership.
• Strong communication, organization, and prioritization skills; able to manage multiple sourcing initiatives in a fast-paced environment.
• Knowledge of GMP/cGMP expectations and supplier onboarding/change control considerations preferred.

Minimum Qualifications, Education & Experience 

• Must be at least 18 years of age
• Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university is required in one of the following fields: Business Administration, Supply Chain Management, or relevant technical field.
• 5-8 years of progressive experience in purchasing, procurement, materials management, inventory management, planning, or supply chain. 
• Position requires active and current compliance with all credentialing requirements to perform the essential function of your role at customer locations.

Work Environment

• This is largely a sedentary role. 
• This job operates in a professional office environment and routinely uses standard office equipment.
• Must be able to occasionally move and lift objects of up to 25 pounds
• Typically requires travel less than 5% of the time