Strategic Sourcing Manager in Blaine, Minnesota at Chandler Industries LLC

About us

Chandler Industries is a premier contract manufacturer specializing in precision machining, EDM, sheet metal fabrication, and a range of value-added services. We excel in providing exceptional value through responsive customer service, technical expertise, and innovative lean manufacturing practices.

With six divisions across Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Mexico, Chandler supports leading customers in highly regulated industries including aerospace, defense, medical, and semiconductor. Our commitment to world-class quality and on-time performance has made us a trusted long-term partner.

Position Summary

The Strategic Sourcing Manager leads Chandler's strategic sourcing and supplier commercial strategy across its U.S. operations. This role is responsible for developing and negotiating supplier agreements, long-term supply and stocking arrangements, commercial terms, and sourcing strategies that ensure continuity of supply, optimize cost, improve supplier performance, support working capital objectives, and enhance customer program profitability.

Serving as the primary commercial owner for key raw material, outside service, special process, hardware, freight-sensitive, and program-critical suppliers, This position also manages the contractual relationship with key logistics and tooling suppliers to support our customer programs. The Strategic Sourcing Manager aligns supplier pricing, lead times, freight terms, surcharges, stocking agreements, and performance expectations with customer contracts, long-term agreements (LTAs), blanket orders, demand forecasts, and operational requirements.

This is a senior individual contributor role focused on supplier strategy, market intelligence, commercial negotiations, supplier performance management, and escalation support for the purchasing team. The position does not perform routine transactional purchasing activities such as purchase order creation, expediting, or daily buyer responsibilities.

The Strategic Sourcing Manager has delegated authority to approve supplier agreements, commercial terms, sourcing recommendations, stocking arrangements, and supplier commitments within established approval limits, escalating decisions beyond those limits as appropriate.

Working closely with Supply Chain, Operations, Quality, Engineering, Finance, Sales, Program Management, and site leadership, this role develops sourcing strategies that strengthen supplier partnerships, mitigate supply risk, reduce supplier-driven margin erosion, and support Chandler's long-term operational and business objectives.

Responsibilities

Supplier Agreement Management: Negotiate long-term vendor agreements to support continuity of supply, competitive pricing, customer program requirements, and margin protection. Ensure supplier-side commitments are aligned with customer LTAs, pricing agreements, blanket orders, and forecasted demand.

Stocking Agreement Strategy: Identify suppliers and programs requiring stocking agreements, consignment arrangements, capacity reservations, blanket releases, or similar supply-continuity mechanisms. Negotiate stocking rules, replenishment obligations, liability terms, aging rules, and ownership terms.

Supplier Commercial Terms: Negotiate and maintain supplier terms including payment terms, surcharge rules, freight rules, lead-time commitments, MOQ requirements, price-adjustment mechanisms, cancellation terms, and escalation processes.

Approval Authority and Commercial Governance: Exercise delegated approval authority for supplier agreements, commercial terms, supplier commitments, and sourcing actions within established company limits. Ensure supplier agreements and negotiated terms are documented, communicated, and translated into ERP/system parameters where applicable.

Supplier Performance Monitoring: Monitor system data for lead times, price-list adherence, purchase price variance, supplier on-time delivery, supplier quality, responsiveness, surcharge compliance, and freight-rule compliance. Escalate deviations to buyers, quality, operations, finance, or leadership as appropriate.

Supplier Scorecards: Generate and maintain supplier scorecards for use by buyers, supply chain leadership, quality, operations, and executive leadership. Scorecards should include relevant measures of delivery, quality, pricing, commercial compliance, responsiveness, lead-time reliability, and supplier risk.

Market Intelligence and Pricing Strategy: Monitor macro-pricing trends for key materials, special processes, outside services, freight, and other supplier cost drivers. Recommend pre-buys, push-outs, supplier negotiations, customer pricing actions, or sourcing changes based on data-supported market trends.

Data, Analytics, and AI-Enabled Sourcing: Leverage Chandler ERP data, supplier performance data, BI tools, and AI-enabled analytics to identify sourcing opportunities, supplier risk, pricing leakage, lead-time deviations, surcharge and freight inconsistencies, and working-capital optimization opportunities. Use data-backed analysis to support supplier negotiations, pre-buy decisions, push-out recommendations, supplier scorecards, and customer pricing input.

Commercial Pricing Support: Assist Sales, Finance, and leadership in evaluating supplier-side cost, lead-time, surcharge, freight, capacity, and continuity-of-supply risks before Chandler commits to customer LTAs, pricing agreements, blanket orders, or other customer program commitments. Provide input to ensure supply chain risks are appropriately reflected in customer pricing decisions.

Buyer Negotiation Support: Assist buyers with supplier negotiations, commercial disputes, price increase challenges, surcharge disagreements, freight disputes, delivery escalations, and supplier recovery discussions as requested.

Supplier Segmentation and Risk Management: Segment suppliers based on spend, program criticality, sole-source exposure, customer-directed status, quality risk, lead-time risk, switching difficulty, and margin exposure. Maintain visibility to critical supplier risks and recommend mitigation actions.

Strategic Sourcing and Resourcing Support: Support RFQs, alternate-source development, dual-source strategies, supplier rationalization, and resourcing recommendations for critical materials, special processes, chronic supplier issues, and high-risk customer programs. This role supports supplier selection and sourcing decisions but does not independently own all RFQ execution or supplier qualification activities.

Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with Supply Chain, Operations, Quality, Engineering, Finance, Sales, and Program Management to align supplier strategy with customer requirements, production needs, quality expectations, working capital goals, and profitability targets.

Continuous Improvement: Identify opportunities to standardize supplier terms, improve supplier master data, reduce pricing leakage, improve supplier accountability, and strengthen sourcing processes across Chandler U.S. sites.

Acquisition and Site Integration Support: Support integration of acquired supplier bases, vendor terms, price lists, payment terms, and supplier agreements into Chandler standards. Identify supplier consolidation opportunities, duplicate vendors, inherited pricing risks, and supplier leverage opportunities.

Supplier and Site Travel: Travel occasionally to suppliers and Chandler U.S. sites to support supplier negotiations, supplier performance reviews, sourcing projects, escalation meetings, and site-specific sourcing needs.

• Bachelor’s degree in supply chain, business, finance, operations, engineering, or related discipline preferred, or equivalent relevant experience.
• Minimum 7 years’ experience in strategic sourcing, procurement, supplier management, supply chain, or supplier commercial negotiations in a manufacturing environment.
• Demonstrated experience negotiating supplier agreements, pricing terms, stocking agreements, surcharge rules, freight rules, payment terms, or long-term supply agreements.
• Experience working with raw materials, special processes, outside services, hardware, or other supplier categories that materially impact manufacturing cost, lead time, quality, and continuity of supply.
• Strong understanding of contract manufacturing, supplier lead times, supplier quality impact, production continuity, customer program requirements, and supplier-driven margin risk.
• Ability to analyze spend, purchase history, supplier performance, purchase price variance, market trends, price lists, lead times, and supplier risk data.
• Strong negotiation skills with the ability to use data, leverage, supplier economics, and business risk to drive commercial outcomes.
• Ability to support buyers in supplier negotiations and dispute resolution without taking over tactical purchasing responsibilities.
• Ability to support commercial pricing decisions by identifying supplier-side cost, lead-time, surcharge, freight, capacity, and supply-continuity risks.
• Ability to work cross-functionally with buyers, quality, engineering, operations, finance, sales, program management, and leadership.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to adapt to changing priorities and identify risk before it becomes a production or margin issue.
• Demonstrated ability to develop supplier scorecards, supplier risk models, sourcing recommendations, and data-supported business cases.
• Ability to leverage ERP data, BI tools, and AI-enabled analytics to identify supplier performance issues, pricing leakage, sourcing opportunities, and supply chain risk.
• Detail-oriented with strong organizational, communication, follow-up, and time-management skills.
• Proficient knowledge of Microsoft Office, with high proficiency in Microsoft Excel.
• Experience working with ERP systems, supplier master data, price lists, purchase order history, supplier lead times, and purchasing reports.
• Ability to apply mathematical and financial analysis to supplier negotiations, including margin impact, working capital impact, inventory exposure, price variance, lead-time risk, break-even points, and cost avoidance.
• Ability and willingness to travel occasionally to suppliers and Chandler U.S. sites.
• Proficient reading, writing, oral communication, and comprehension in English language.
• This position may require use of information or access to hardware which is subject to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). All employees must be U.S. persons within the meaning of ITAR. ITAR defines a U.S. person as a U.S. Citizen, U.S. Permanent Resident, Political Asylee, or Refugee.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working in aerospace, defense, medical device, precision machining, or other highly regulated manufacturing environments.
• Experience with customer LTAs, supplier LTAs, pricing agreements, blanket orders, customer-directed suppliers, and program-specific supply commitments.
• Experience with Epicor Epicor Data Analytics, Power BI, or similar ERP and business intelligence tools.
• Experience using AI applications, automation tools, or advanced analytics to analyze supplier data, identify exceptions, generate insights, and improve sourcing workflows.
• Experience working with raw material suppliers, plating, heat treat, coatings, grinding, outside processing, hardware, special processes, or freight-sensitive supply chains.
• Experience supporting acquisitions, supplier rationalization, ERP conversions, or multi-site supplier integration.
• Experience creating supplier scorecards, supplier business reviews, sourcing dashboards, or purchasing performance metrics.
• Experience supporting customer pricing, quote reviews, LTA analysis, or commercial risk analysis.
• CPSM, CPIM, CSCP, or other supply chain/procurement certification preferred but not required.

Compensation

Compensation is determined based on a variety of factors related to the specific position. These may include skills, relevant experience, education, internal equity, business needs, and local market conditions. While the full range is shared for transparency, offers are rarely made at the minimum or maximum of the range.

Chandler offers a comprehensive benefits package to eligible employees and their dependents. This includes medical, dental, and vision coverage; life insurance; short- and long-term disability; a 401(k) plan with safe harbor company match; and a range of supplemental benefit options. In addition, eligible employees receive paid holidays and paid time off.