Purchase Manager (Clabecq)

Steel makes our world a better place.

Steel enables tall buildings being constructed, bridges, cars, trains, sophisticated medical equipment, space craft, etc.  It is the building blocks of our society.  Look around you; everything you see that was made by man, is either made from steel or steel were used in it’s creation.

NLMK has a presence across Europe with 6 manufacturing plants and is part of the very successful larger NLMK Group with manufacturing presence in 7 countries and selling our products in 70.

We are one of the most efficient steel producers in the world.  We invest heavily into Research and Development to create new solutions for a modern world and use in our manufacturing processes Artificial Intelligence, augmented reality and many other technologies to help us to continually improve.

Steel is a perfect circular economy and can be recycled indefinitely.  We are developing and driving towards a carbon-neutral steel industry.  You can be part of this exciting world and help us shape the future.

The Purchase manager lead the local purchasing organization in close cooperation with the Chief Procurement Officer of Europe and the European category managers and Local Category leads. He/She cooperate with Category teams and leads the local warehousing activities ensuring the company obtains the most competitive advantages for its external purchase and services, striving for lowest total cost of ownership while meeting defined and sustainability standards.

Responsibilities:

Procurement processes

• Implement strategic sourcing on assigned categories
• Implements agreed P2P procurement processes at plant level
• Drives continuous improvement on transactional activities
• Establishes stable and clear way of communication between Procurement Leads

Warehouse management

• Management warehouse team of 5 people
• Be accountable to drive improvement in warehouse management practices
• Collaborate with Purchasing team to reduce MRO inventory value

Stakeholders relationship

• Provide effective support to Clabecq users with shop floor visits/meetings
• Look for improvement ideas to help users
• Support users on issues in SAP and guide them to the right experts
• Coordinate the support of Category Lead and Category Manager Europe on site
• Supports Category Managers with information about plant strategies
• Improve Purchasing KPIs (delivery compliance, contract coverage, Cost reduction, Stock reduction, late invoices, E-catalog coverage, etc.)
• Be the voice of the Clabecq site within the European Purchasing management team
• Look for opportunities to consolidate the supplier base between Belgium plants
• Improve coverage of key contracts (Service Maintenance, contractors and tollers)
• Evaluate options to reduce costs on local categories (Maintenance services, Tolling, …)
• Be supportive of Procurement improvement ideas: back to basics, listening to and supporting users and strengthening team spirit through the European network

Leadership

• Collaborate with a matrix Procurement team, Manage WH teams and manages their performance. Attract, develop and retain talent through engaging team members, coordinating regular meetings. Lead by example acting as role model
• Coordinate spend of +70 M€ with the support of Category leads and managers.

 Supplier relationships

• Develops strong collaboration and partnership with key suppliers for the site.
• Develop a good understanding of Master plan of the site for 2025-2030 in order to position Procurement as a key asset to bring value by using supplier’s innovation.
• Evaluate key suppliers on their core competencies, their competitive positioning to minimize risk, protect continuity of supply and ensure lower TCO.

The ideal profile:

• Strategic Thinking to create Procurement new approaches
• Work in matrix organization
• Develop and coach teams
• Collaboration with users
• Successful, multi-year track record in Procurement
• Exceptional problem-solving and analytical skills.
• Planning/project management skills.
• Comfortable with conflict
• Strong negotiating skills
• Superior communication/interpersonal skills & able to work in a dual reporting matrix
• Passion for cost reduction 
• Distinctive leadership
• University degree and min 10 years work experience; BA
• Experience in Heavy industry, Steel, Automotive, others.