Principal Inventory & Materials Improvement Specialist

Beehive Industries is dedicated to Powering American Defense by revolutionizing the design, development, and delivery of jet propulsion systems to support the warfighter. Through the integration of additive manufacturing, the company aims to meet the growing and urgent needs for unmanned aerial defense by dramatically improving a jet engine’s speed to market, fuel efficiency, and cost. Founded in 2020, the company is headquartered in Centennial, Colorado, with additional facilities in Knoxville, Tennessee, Loveland Ohio, and Mount Vernon, Ohio. Beehive is committed to grow and advance the defense industrial base while manufacturing exclusively in the USA. This role will be located at our Centennial, Colorado facility.

About the role

We are seeking an experienced Lead Inventory & Materials Improvement Specialist, a senior-level leader responsible for establishing, owning, and continuously improving the company’s inventory management and material flow processes across Beehive’s manufacturing environment. This role serves as the strategic and operational owner for how inventory is received, stored, controlled, presented to assembly, issued to the production floor, reconciled, and ultimately reflected in the company’s financials. The role sits at the intersection of Manufacturing, Materials, Supply Chain, Operations, and Finance, ensuring that inventory strategies support production requirements while maintaining strong inventory accuracy, financial integrity, and working capital performance. This position is expected to operate with significant autonomy and influence. The successful candidate will establish standards, drive cross-functional alignment, identify systemic opportunities, and lead improvements that create scalable and sustainable inventory processes.

Responsibilities

• Own the overall inventory strategy and processes across manufacturing, ensuring standardized, scalable, and effective inventory practices.
• Own material presentation to assembly, establishing strategies for line-side stocking, point-of-use inventory, kitting, staging, and replenishment.
• Develop and optimize material stocking strategies based on demand, consumption, lead times, material criticality, and production requirements; establish standard work for kit build, staging, and consumption.
• Own material issuance processes to the production floor, ensuring accurate transactions and alignment between physical material movement and ERP/MRP records.
• Establish and lead inventory reconciliation practices, including cycle counting, physical inventories, variance investigation, and root-cause corrective actions.
• Drive inventory accuracy and control, ensuring physical inventory, system inventory, and financial inventory remain aligned.
• Partner with Finance on inventory financials, including reconciliations, reserves, adjustments, write-offs, and month/quarter/year-end activities.
• Optimize inventory levels and working capital, balancing material availability to production with excess, obsolete, aging, and overall inventory reduction objectives.
• Lead cross-functional inventory and material-flow improvements, partnering with Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Finance, Quality, Engineering, and IT to solve systemic issues.
• Establish inventory performance metrics and governance, using data and KPIs to drive accountability, identify risks, and continuously improve inventory accuracy, availability, flow, and financial performance.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Operations, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
• 10+ years of experience in inventory or materials management within a manufacturing or assembly environment.
• Demonstrated experience designing, implementing, and improving inventory management processes.
• Hands-on experience supporting production lines, work cells, or assembly operations.
• Strong understanding of inventory reconciliation, cycle counting, and root-cause analysis.
• Experience using ERP/MRP systems in a manufacturing setting.
• Experience partnering directly with Finance on inventory valuation, financial reconciliation, reserves, adjustments, and reporting.
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional initiatives and influence stakeholders at all levels.
• Strong communication, analytical, problem-solving, and organizational skills.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government-issued security clearance; U.S. citizenship is required.

Skills

• Experience with Lean Manufacturing, Kanban, or pull-based material systems (nice to have).
• APICS certification (CPIM, CSCP) or Lean/Six Sigma certification (nice to have).
• Experience developing material flow strategies for high-mix or high-volume assembly (nice to have).
• Familiarity with WIP tracking and backflushing processes (nice to have).

Pay

In compliance with Colorado’s Equal Pay for Equal Work Act, the salary range for this position is $145,000-$180,000 base salary. Please note that wage information is a general guideline only, and we will consider factors such as (but not limited to) scope and responsibilities of the position, candidate’s work experience, education/training, key skills, and market conditions when extending an offer.

Benefits

• Comprehensive benefits package including group Medical, Dental, Life, and Short and Long-Term disability coverage from day one.
• Generous 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan with a Company match.
• Bonus eligibility for every role at Beehive Industries.
• Equity in the company.