Overview
Senior Strategic Buyer (aerospace manufacturing) Jobs in Grand Rapids, MI at Insight Global
Title: Senior Strategic Buyer (aerospace manufacturing)
Company: Insight Global
Location: Grand Rapids, MI
We are looking for a full time/direct hire a Senior Strategic Buyer to work fully onsite at a reputable aviation/aerospace engineering and manufacturing company in Grand Rapids, MI. Offering competitive salary and benefits (benefits highlights listed below)! Ideal candidate comes from a strategic and analytical procurement background for highly regulated manufacturing.
Job Description:
We are seeking a highly motivated and experienced Value Steam Leader to lead our supply chain, production, and quality functions. This critical role is responsible for driving continuous improvement across all operational aspects, from planning and procurement to manufacturing and quality assurance. The successful candidate will be a dynamic leader with a strong background in operations and a passion for developing people and processes. The ideal candidate is a high energy transformational leader with demonstrated and progressive experience creating, analyzing and optimizing well balanced sales, capacity and inventory plans using SAP, complex analytic tools and AI engines.
- People Management & Leadership: Lead, mentor, and develop a team of 25-30 direct reports, including assemblers, technicians, working leads, production planners, procurement specialists, manufacturing engineers, product quality engineers, and customer quality engineers.
- Continuous Improvement (CI): Use CI to actively facilitate and lead Kaizen events and other continuous improvement initiatives across all functional areas.
- Supply Chain & Operations Management: Oversee production planning, master scheduling, and procurement activities.
- SAP Expertise: Utilize SAP extensively and provide mentorship and training to the team on its effective use.
- Strategic Contribution: Support the Product Line General Manager in achieving operational excellence and strategic goals.
Position Overview:
Insight Global is hiring a Senior Strategic Buyer for a commercial aerospace customer. This person will report to the category manager, and expected to:
- Own end‑to‑end direct material procurement
- Drive cost reduction, PPV, negotiation, LTAs
- Manage supplier performance and risk
- Optimize inventory, DOS, MRP signals
- Be SAP/ERP superuser
- Partner cross‑functionally with Ops, Eng, Quality, Programs
- Lead Lean / CI initiatives Operate in a high‑mix, high‑complexity aerospace environment
Minimum Requirements:
- 5 years in a strategic Buyer role within manufacturing (aerospace/defense strongly preferred)
Desired Skillet:
- Cost management expertise and demonstrated success delivering year‑over‑year cost savings and cash improvements
- Advanced negotiation expertise (should‑cost/TCO, indexation/hedging, LTAs).
- PPB (Purchase Price Breakdown / Variance), deflation, terms, inventory
- Driving measurable cost savings and cost‑down initiatives
- Understanding the why behind spend decisions—not just execution
- Supplier management experience
- Managing supplier performance, pricing, and relationships
- Partnering with suppliers to support cost, quality, and delivery objectives
- Strong SAP or ANY other ERP super user-level experience performing data analysis and reporting (does NOT have to be SAP)
- Tactical PO creation and ongoing
- PO management
- Master Data management (vendor, material, pricing, etc.)
- Strong understanding of the IT/system setup and integration side (not just end‑user transactions) is a plus
Benefits highlights:
- Competitive compensation – We offer competitive compensation packages for the talent we hire
- Healthcare – We offer major medical, dental, vision, disability, FSA and HSA’s
- Time off – We offer 10 holidays, flexible time-off plans and some locations offer 9/80 schedules
- 401k – We match up to 6%
- Parental leave – We offer 6 weeks
- Wellness – Our medical plans offer wellness programs and we offer EAP
- Education assistance – We support colleagues that pursue qualified degree programs
- ERG’s – We support workplace diversity and inclusion
