Director Materials Management

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As a Director Materials Management your goal is to be Accountable for the supply and movement of all materials from their source to the point of use at the factory, actively planning and executing to achieve productivity and efficiency targets as well as managing risk and generating cost savings to achieve the strategic goals of the business. 

The Director of Material Management will lead the Materials Management Group and direct the global optimization of all processes and systems within Material Handling, Purchasing, Production Control, and Detailed Scheduling.  This includes facilitating effective design and decision making related to system and process improvements with key stakeholder functions in Production, Planning, Sourcing, IT, and Finance.

This position reports to the Sr. Director of Planning & Materials Management with a dotted line to Plant Managers to ensure holistic alignment of activities.   This position leads all material management activities as well as process and system development across 5 production plants (4 US, 1 China) within the Power, Electrification and Energy Solutions Business Units.  This position is also expected to closely align best practice with all business units across Briggs & Stratton. #LI-MD1 #LI-Onsite

You will do this by executing critical deliverables:

• Leadership – Lead and coach materials management teams and create a culture focused on continuous improvement.
• Direct system and process continuous improvement – Develop a vision and long-term strategy related to the system, process, and skill roadmap to institutionalize best practices in all aspects of materials management. 
• Global Business Process Owner – Act as global process owner in IT forums to ensure ‘Plan to Produce’ (PTP) changes are aligned and fit for purpose across functions and across business units and development needs are translated to IT. 
• Performance management – Establish and utilize a broad range of KPIs to measure overall people, system and process performances. Communicates improvement opportunities and actions to Business Unit Leadership Teams.  Directly accountable for improvement of component inventory turns, supplier delivery and minimizing production shortages.
• Cross-functional leadership – Ability to effectively influence and drive alignment between cross functional groups (Finance, Planning, Manufacturing, Sourcing, et. al.) in pursuit of the best possible business results for the company and our customers. 
• Training and technical expertise – Where relevant and in conjunction with system and process improvements, this role will ensure effective training to ensure impacted areas can effectively execute any new functionality or process.

The above statements are intended only to describe the general nature of the job and should not be construed as an all-inclusive list of position responsibilities. 

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You are the kind of person who is/has:

• Able to manage/problem solve within a fast-paced, rapidly changing environment with multiple priorities 
• Able to analyze complex business situations and problems, coordinate many complex activities/projects simultaneously and direct successful, fact-based solutions 
• Able to partner at all levels within the supply base to develop strategic relationships

Qualifications: 

• Minimum of 15 years experience in materials management, production, and inventory control or supply chain management.
• Bachelor's Degree in Business, Engineering or Related field. Master’s Degree preferred.
• Must possess strong business and financial skills including the ability to utilize financial metrics and knowledge of business cost structure to support making decisions. 
• Demonstrated high technical expertise in SAP ECC and SAP S4 HANA is required.  BW/BI, EDI, Logility, and DOMO experience preferred.
• Demonstrated use of AI tools in Materials Management or Supply Chain activities such as Gemini, NotebookLM, Claude, n8n, or Motion is highly preferred.
• Domestic travel in the 25 - 40% range with minimal international travel expectation.
• Prior experience with Continuous Improvement methodologies such as Lean Six Sigma is preferred. Demonstrated experience identifying improvement opportunities and leading teams to complete projects.
• Strong written and oral communication skills required as well as the ability to communicate at ALL levels of the organization and use influence skills effectively in a cross functional environment. 
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate across functions to resolve issues. 

This position can be based at one of our following locations: Auburn, AL, Tucker, GA, Statesboro, GA or Milwaukee, WI.

Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions