OSP Buyer in Devon

The South Molton plant is based in Devon, UK and has over 400 employees. The plant commenced production in 1973 and in 1975 an investment casting foundry opened on the site. The Foundry is the only one of its kind across Eaton’s Aerospace plants. Today the plant’s core focus is the design, manufacture and test of components primarily for the aerospace sector. The site’s main customer is the Eaton facility at Titchfield, Hampshire, UK and the external customers to the site include Airbus, Boeing, Embraer and Augusta Westland.

What you’ll do:

The position focuses on purchases for indirect material and services from major suppliers & strategic commodities. The position manages the assigned indirect material supply base for South Molton to ensure uninterrupted supply at optimum cost, quality, and service for each site. Must be dedicated to maintaining strategic relationships and creating new ones within the supply base. Maintains an essential balance between supplier quality, delivery expectations, and cost reduction metrics for all indirect material purchases. Champion the assigned supply chain driven metrics and tracking.

Critical Outputs:

• Manages indirect material supplier relationships and opportunities for cost out and product/supplier improvement, while ensuring adequate service levels are met.
• Acts and applies skillful negotiations with internal and external suppliers; conducts problem resolution and settles disputes; develops win-win solutions, and creates positive relations with tact and expert judgment.
• Identifies opportunities and ensures compliance to existing corporate indirect material supply contracts for the site, increases supply chain managed spend, cost reductions, and category leverage.
• Monitors new supplier add requests and consolidates the current or new diverse supply base spend into leveraged spend categories and contracts.

Essential Functions:

• Manages and maintains all assigned current supplier contacts, business relationships and commercial responsibilities for the site.
• Develops and helps facilitate cost out projects and commodity strategic actions, while assisting the corporate indirect material commodity teams implement projects for the site.
• Facilitates supplier questions on accounts payables and supports any necessary activity for disposition of invoice resolutions and/or payment issues.
• Facilitates cross-functional collaboration with others to identify new areas of opportunity and achieve the greatest outcomes in support of strategic goals and initiatives.
• Develop applicable skills in processes, and gain experience in analyzing and interpreting total cost management drivers when developing cost outsourcing strategies.

Qualifications:

• 2+ years’ experience working within a supply chain or material management function, desirably within Aerospace.

Skills:

• Possesses expert knowledge and experience in successfully developing commodity strategies, deploying sourcing initiatives, and project managing cost-out and supplier improvement programs.
• Shows track records for demonstrating leadership, and thinking and acting strategically. Demonstrated experience with commodity products and suppliers.
• Excellent communication, customer service, and interpersonal skills necessary to converse with diverse group of stakeholders including senior management, operations, SCM personnel, and external suppliers.
• Knowledgeable on ERP system operations, functions, and interfaces. Enterprise reporting systems and data mining.
• Skilled in Microsoft office applications, heavily influenced on excel.
• Knowledgeable of commercial terms, practices, contract terms and conditions in the corporate setting.

What we offer:

• A company culture committed to Inclusion & Diversity and Sustainability.
• Annual mentoring programme, Eaton University, and a robust reward and recognition framework.
• Ongoing learning and global career development opportunities, including internal mobility.
• Comprehensive induction support and a well‑structured onboarding experience.