Materials Program Manager - BNSM

Overview

The Materials Project Manager (MPM) is the BU-facing supply chain leader and GSM advisor responsible for ensuring material and supply readiness across the assigned Business Unit. 

 

The MPM translates the BU’s growth plans, product roadmap, forecasts, and operational priorities into supply readiness and risk-mitigation plans. The role evaluates demand against supplier capacity and capability, identifies constraints, quantifies business impact, and presents recommendations and required decisions to BU and GSM leadership. 

 

Working across Procurement, Strategic Sourcing, Planning, Engineering, Quality, Manufacturing, Finance, Program Management, and suppliers, the MPM connects BU strategy, supplier strategy, and supply execution. Strategic Sourcing retains category and sourcing ownership, while Buyer/Planners retain routine transactional execution. The MPM owns BU-level readiness, risk visibility, cross-functional alignment, and executive follow-through. 

Responsibilities

Business Unit Partnership and Procurement Advisory 

• Serve as Procurement’s primary point of contact and trusted advisor to assigned BU leadership and cross-functional stakeholders. 
• Understand the BU’s three-to-five-year growth plans, product and technology roadmaps, demand outlook, launch schedule, manufacturing strategy, and customer priorities. 
• Translate BU requirements into clear supply readiness priorities, risks, and actions. 
• Represent GSM in BU planning, operating reviews, program reviews, and leadership discussions; communicate business exposure, tradeoffs, recommendations, and decisions required. 

Supply Chain Readiness and Supply Risk Ownership 

• Own BU supply readiness assessments for NPI, engineering changes, product transfers, sustaining production, and growth plans. 
• Maintain a forward-looking view of material availability, critical parts, supplier capacity and capability, lead times, qualification timing, and ramp requirements. 
• Evaluate demand scenarios against supply capacity to identify when constraints could affect launches, production, customer commitments, or growth. 
• Assess sole- and single-source exposure, supplier technology dependencies, proprietary manufacturing processes, capacity constraints, sourcing limitations, obsolescence, quality concerns, and other continuity risks. 
• Quantify potential impact to revenue, customer commitments, NPI, engineering changes (ECOs), production, cost, inventory, and business-growth objectives. 
• Maintain the BU readiness dashboard and risk register with clear business impact, mitigation actions, owners, timing, escalation status, and decisions required. 
• Drive mitigation plans to closure and escalate unresolved risks early enough to protect BU commitments. 
• Own and lead quarterly Supply Chain Readiness and Supplier Risk Reviews with BU and GSM leadership, covering current priorities, the next four-to-six quarters, and risks to the BU’s three-to-five-year growth plans. 

 

Program and Product Lifecycle Leadership 

• Serve as the GSM representative for assigned BU programs and ensure early Procurement and supplier involvement in NPI, engineering changes, product transfers, and production-readiness activities. 
• Develop and coordinate material strategies, procurement deliverables, milestones, and readiness criteria aligned with program schedules, cost, quality, and working-capital objectives. 
• Partner with Engineering and Quality to identify critical and long-lead parts, technical dependencies, qualification requirements, and sourcing constraints before they affect execution. 
• Coordinate deliverables through the appropriate functional owners and intervene directly when a critical issue threatens a launch, production, revenue, or customer commitment. Routine PO creation, expediting, and shortage management remain with Buyer/Planners. 

 

Strategic Sourcing and Supplier Readiness Support 

• Provide Strategic Sourcing with BU forecasts, technology requirements, supplier capability needs, cost opportunities, and risk priorities to support category and supplier strategies. 
• Partner with Strategic Sourcing to align supplier capacity, capability, investment, diversification, and continuity plans with the BU roadmap. 
• Support longer-term supplier and supply-network assessments needed to meet the BU’s three-to-five-year demand and technology requirements. 
• Coordinate readiness and recovery actions for critical suppliers when performance, capacity, or capability creates business risk. 

 

Operational and Financial Performance 

• Coordinate with Planning and Buyer/Planners to support material availability while managing inventory, expedite costs, and working-capital exposure. 
• Monitor readiness, supplier, cost, and inventory metrics; identify trends and drive corrective actions. 
• Balance risk-mitigation decisions with cost, inventory, working capital, revenue exposure, and customer impact. 
• Ensure key risks, assumptions, decisions, and commitments are documented and communicated clearly and promptly. 
• Apply consistent readiness methods, dashboards, and review practices across supported BUs while identifying opportunities to improve data quality and automation through SAP, LeanDNA, and other available tools. 

Qualifications

Required Education and Skills 

• Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain, Engineering, Business, Economics or related field. 
• 7-10 years of experience of supply chain, demand planning, purchasing, inventory control and /or supplier management. 
• Demonstrated experience leading cross-functional material-readiness, supply-risk, product-launch, or operational planning activities in a matrix environment. 
• Strong written, verbal, facilitation, and presentation skills, including the ability to communicate supply risk and business impact to leadership. 
• Strong analytical capability with experience consolidating complex data into clear business insights, risk assessments, recommendations, and executive-level presentations. 
• Strong working proficiency with Microsoft Office, including expert-level functionality with Excel. 
• Working knowledge of ERP/MRP processes and procurement analytics; proficiency with SAP S/4HANA and analytical tools such as SAP Analytics Cloud preferred.
• Advanced proficiency with Microsoft Office, including Excel and PowerPoin\
• roject or program management experience and working knowledge of project-management tools and best practices. 

 

Desired Education and Skills 

• Master’s degree (MS or MBA) – Management, Supply Chain, Engineering, Business or other related field 

• Technical knowledge of manufacturing and product-development processes, including design, assembly, integration, test, qualification, and change control. 

• CPIM, CSCP, PMP, DDPP, or related certification preferred. 

Additional Knowledge, Skills, Abilities and other Characteristics 

• Acts as a credible business partner who can connect BU strategy and operational requirements to procurement priorities and material-readiness actions. 

• Demonstrates ownership and follow-through; proactively identifies risk, establishes accountability, and drives cross-functional mitigation plans to closure. 

• Applies strong critical thinking and business judgment to evaluate incomplete or conflicting information, distinguish symptoms from root causes, and recommend practical solutions. 

• Combines supply chain expertise with financial and operational acumen to evaluate cost, inventory, capacity, schedule, quality, and continuity tradeoffs. 

• Communicates complex or sensitive information in a concise, decision-oriented manner and adjusts the level of detail for BU leaders, technical teams, suppliers, and execution teams. 

• Influences without direct authority, builds consensus across functions, and respectfully challenges assumptions or recovery plans that do not adequately protect business requirements. 

• Highly organized and self-driven with the ability to manage multiple priorities, projects, and data sources while maintaining accuracy, visibility, timely escalation, and a strong focus on delivering results. 

• Comfortable operating with broad direction and appropriate autonomy in a global, fast-paced, and changing environment. 

At Bruker, base salary is part of our total compensation. The estimated base salary range for this full-time position is between $97,000 and $170,000 provides an opportunity to progress as you grow and develop within a role. The base salary for the role will depend on a several job-related factors, including, but not limited to education, training, experience, the geographic location of the successful candidate, skills, competencies, job-related knowledge and travel requirements for this position. Full-time employees may also be eligible for a performance-related incentive in addition to a full range of benefits including 401(k) with company match, an employee stock purchase plan, medical and dental plans, life insurance, short-term and long-term disability insurance, employee assistance program and paid time off including vacation, sick time and holidays, and more.

 

Bruker is an equal-opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, and other legally protected characteristics.

 

Certain positions at Bruker require compliance with export control laws and as a result, all interviewed candidates for all positions will be screened pre-interview to determine their eligibility in light of export control restrictions.

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