Senior Buyer

About the Role

As Senior Buyer, you will balance cost, quality, and delivery across your assigned commodities, build the supplier relationships that keep our manufacturing running, and negotiate the pricing and supply that keep ACI products competitive.

Responsibilities

• Own Your Commodity Strategy: Take full ownership of your assigned commodities, setting the sourcing approach that best balances cost, quality, lead time, and supply risk. Translate MRP requirements into a purchasing strategy rather than simply reacting to demand.
• Day-to-Day Buying: Place and manage purchase orders against MRP requirements, enter and manage companywide purchase requisitions, keep PO changes current, resolve invoice discrepancies, and expedite deliveries when production needs them.
• Sourcing and Negotiation: Obtain and analyze competitive quotes, recommend sources, and negotiate favorable pricing, terms, and contracts for products, tooling, and services. Your negotiations will directly influence ACI's product cost targets.
• Total Cost Management: Develop and execute strategies to control total landed cost over the short and long term, avoiding factory stock-outs while eliminating excess and obsolete inventory. Lead cost-savings initiatives and identify cost and process improvement opportunities across your categories.
• Supplier Relationship Management: Build and manage new and established supplier relationships, identify and recommend alternate sources of supply, monitor delivery and quality performance, drive corrective actions, and remove barriers to supplier success. Recognize consistently poor performers and act to address them.
• Supply Continuity and Risk: Safeguard production against disruption by anticipating shortages, prioritizing critical needs, escalating risks to management with proposed solutions, and expediting when required. Manage transitions and end-of-life (EOL) activities so supply is never interrupted.
• Change and Lifecycle Management (ECN): Implement changes released through the Engineering Change program, communicate revision changes to suppliers, and manage the associated sourcing, transition, and phase-out activities.
• Continuous Improvement: Review purchasing methods to maximize lean supply chain efficiencies, write and maintain purchasing work instructions, and help raise the capability of the procurement function, including acting as a trainer for procurement activities.
• Freight and Logistics: Understand freight terms and shipping methods and recommend the best delivery option from domestic and overseas vendors, balancing cost against lead time.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in engineering, business, supply chain, or a similar technical discipline, or equivalent progressive purchasing experience.
• 7–10 years of buying experience at a manufacturing company, including experience sourcing electronic components (ICs, capacitors, resistors, crystals, connectors, and similar items).
• Demonstrated experience developing commodity or category sourcing strategy, not just executing transactions.
• Proven ability to negotiate contracts, pricing, and terms with suppliers to achieve favorable outcomes and cost targets.
• Strong command of total cost concepts (total landed cost, cost reduction, avoidance of unfavorable price variances).
• Exceptional communication (written and verbal) and interpersonal skills, with the ability to collaborate and influence across internal and external stakeholders at all levels.
• Proficient with Microsoft Excel, Word, Outlook, OneNote, and PowerPoint.
• Detail-oriented, self-motivated, and able to respond quickly in a fast-moving, ever-changing environment.
• Proven ability to manage multiple priorities and projects while maintaining accuracy and professionalism under pressure.
• U.S. Citizenship or U.S. Permanent Resident (Green Card) required.

Work Environment

• Office environment with regular interaction across production floor, quality, and service departments.
• Prolonged computer work; extended hours may occur during product launches.
• Regularly scheduled meetings with other departments and suppliers.

About the Company

Applied Concepts is a 49-year-old, 250-person privately owned company, located in Richardson, Texas. Founded in 1977 by an electrical engineer, we have a long history of profitable, organic growth. Our company remains entrepreneurial at heart, constantly re-inventing ourselves with new products and new markets, but still balanced with business prudence. We manufacture our own products, in our own facilities. Integrating our product development with our own manufacturing resources is a key part of our business culture, keeping us nimble and able to provide high-quality products.

We focus on designing, manufacturing, and selling products that promote public safety. We are the number one supplier of speed enforcement products to law enforcement in the United States. Our employees take pride in the quality of our products and the service we provide in keeping our streets and neighborhoods safe. We offer a variety of engineering challenges, from microwave to high-speed lasers, to image capturing and processing, and LED speed calming devices.