Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Bruker is a leading analytical instrumentation company providing life science and diagnostic solutions to scientists, businesses, and research institutions worldwide. The Materials Program Manager serves as the primary liaison between the Business Unit and Global Supply Chain, managing material readiness, availability, and visibility across new product introduction and sustaining activities. The role leads material strategy, supply risk mitigation, procurement execution, supplier relationships, and cross-functional supply chain coordination.
Responsibilities
- Serve as the designated Global Supply Chain (GSM) representative on all BU project teams, driving early engagement and lifecycle supply chain planning
- Own material strategy development and execution to support all phases of product development through sustaining operations
- Support supply chain requirements across both NPI initiatives and ongoing production for existing products
- Define and report clear-to-build (CTB) status to key stakeholders, ensuring alignment between procurement activities and build schedules. Partner closely with the respective BU planners to align CTB projections with real-time build plans, demand shifts, and supply chain constraints
- Partner cross-functionally with Engineering, Manufacturing, Quality, Finance, and Legal to resolve supply issues and maintain alignment on project milestones
- Coordinates demand signals through MRP to minimize inventory exposure
- Forecasts and communicates engineering, materials, and manufacturing requirements to suppliers
- Under some supervision, creates, releases and updates new project materials strategy
- Works with engineering to identify preliminary critical parts, long-lead parts and inspection
- Coordinates and provides product development process deliverables through matrix management of buyers such as:
- Actively manage RFQs, provide COGs estimate for new products or assemblies, and mitigate continuity of supply challenges both internally and externally
- Coordinates activities around source selection, specification creation and price negotiation with appropriate team members to receive materials at the right cost, quality, and lead time to improve our working capital goals
- Collaborates with the engineering team to interpret engineering requirements for product development process as it relates to buying materials accurately, according to specifications, on time and on budget
- Driving supplier price and delivery negotiations, NDAs, and assisting with the negotiation of contracts as necessary
- Utilizes the preferred supplier selection and assessment process when selecting suppliers
- Completes supplier risk assessment on critical and unique parts. Monitors supplier performance (delivery, quality, cost)
- Provides input to outsourcing decisions by performing make versus buy analysis Works with engineering to identify preliminary critical parts, long-lead parts, and inspection requirements. Assists in developing supplier and commodity road maps to engineering
- Utilizes value analysis on build-to-print components in support of Should Cost analysis
- Maintain day-to-day supplier relationships for Critical and/or High Value Suppliers, acting as the point of contact for supplier commercial issues
- Actively mediates and partners with quality and engineering teams to resolve supplier quality issues for assigned product groups and drive appropriate corrective action(s)
- Escalate issues to the appropriate management when necessary
Skills
- Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain, Engineering, Business, Economics or related field
- 7-10 years of experience of supply chain, demand planning, purchasing, inventory control and /or supplier management
- Strong working proficiency with Microsoft Office, including expert-level functionality with Excel
- Minimum 3 years' experience working with SAP S4/HANA and analytical software (PowerBI, Tableau, SAP Analytics Cloud, etc.)
- Knowledge of project management application tools and best practices
- Strong written and oral presentation skills
- Experience working with diverse, cross-functional teams
- Background in supply chain management for complex, high-technology products in the life sciences or biotech sector, ideally supporting research tools such as molecular, cellular, or imaging platforms
- Highly motivated and self-driven with a focus on successfully delivering results for the team and meeting overall company goals
- Extremely organized and detail-oriented with the ability to manage large amounts of data from various inputs and consolidate the information for critical business decisions (data analytics)
- Strong interpersonal, persuasion, influencing and collaboration skills required, working to build consensus
- Demonstrates flexibility and the ability to multi-task and balance competing priorities constantly and meet strict deadlines
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, including the ability to anticipate and identify issues or barriers and generate solutions
- Demonstrates in-depth understanding of supply chain operations and financial acumen, with knowledge and proficiency across multiple supply chain functions
- Solves complex problems; takes a new perspective on existing solutions; exercises judgment based on the analysis of multiple sources of information
- Agility to work within broad guidelines and policies to impact a range of customer, operational, project, or service activities within own team and other related teams
- Knowledge of best practices and how own area integrates with others; is aware of the competition and the factors that differentiate them in the market
- Master's degree (MS or MBA) – Management, Supply Chain, Engineering, Business or other related field
- Technical knowledge of operational and manufacturing processes (design, assembly, integration, and test)
- Certificate in CPIM or CSCP strongly preferred
- Certificate in DDPP strongly preferred
- Background in supply chain management for complex, high-technology products in the life sciences or biotech sector, ideally supporting research tools such as molecular, cellular, or imaging platforms strongly preferred
Benefits
- Full-time employees may also be eligible for a performance-related incentive
- 401(k) with company match
- An employee stock purchase plan
- Medical and dental plans
- Life insurance
- Short-term and long-term disability insurance
- Employee assistance program
- Paid time off including vacation, sick time and holidays
Company Overview