Planner/Buyer, Supply Chain
Aperia is unlocking a new era of efficiency and sustainability for commercial vehicle fleets, by developing innovative hardware and data analytics solutions. Inventors of the award- winning and disruptive Halotm Automatic Tire Inflator, and the cloud delivered Halo Connect tire analytics platform. Aperia saves fleets thousands of hours of down-time every week, reduces the carbon footprint and environmental impact of the freight industry. Join us as we expand our product offering and take the next steps on our journey toward bringing the "backbone of our economy" into the automation age.
Your Role
As a Planner/Buyer on Aperia’s Supply Chain team, you own both the demand and the supply side of your assigned commodity groups, a mix of off-the-shelf components and build-to-spec parts. You are the day-to-day contact for the suppliers and contract manufacturers who make them. Through regular touchpoints you will understand their capacity and constraints as well as they do, and make sure they always know what Aperia needs next. When something slips, a late shipment, a design change, a demand spike, you are the person who sees it first and drives it to resolution.
Your Responsibilities
- Translate Aperia’s production and sales plans into a demand forecast, applying the planning method that fits each inventory group, MRP, min/max, kanban, or reorder point to support inventory planning.
- Own item master planning parameters in NetSuite (lead times, safety stock, lot sizing, reorder points) by maintaining them accurately so that MRP output is trustworthy enough to act on.
- Place and manage purchase orders from release through receipt, including expediting, de-expediting, and resolving PO, acknowledgement, and invoice discrepancies to support timely material availability.
- Publish rolling delivery schedules to contract manufacturers so they can level-load their factories.
- Run shortage and clear-to-build reporting; escalate and resolve bottlenecks cross-functionally before they become line-down events.
- Partner with Engineering and Quality on engineering change orders, sequencing cut-in dates, managing run-out of superseded revisions to minimize excess inventory.
- Manage supplier performance using delivery, quality, and responsiveness data, and bring the data to quarterly business reviews.
- Support inventory health in your commodity groups: cycle count follow-up, aging and excess/obsolete review, and inventory turns analysis to maintain effective stock levels.
- Support new product introduction by sourcing prototype and pilot builds and setting up new items for production.
- Negotiate pricing, MOQs, lead times, and payment terms within approval limits to support cost and supply objectives.
Skills/Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain Management, Logistics or related field.
- 3+ years in purchasing and planning (both preferred), in a manufacturing or hardware environment.
- Hands-on experience running planning and purchasing in an ERP system such as NetSuite, SAP, Oracle, or Microsoft Dynamics.
- Strong Excel, pivot tables, lookups, and comfort cleaning and analyzing several thousand rows of ERP data without help.
- A track record of resolving supply problems by pulling in the right people, rather than escalating and waiting.
- Clear, direct written communication with suppliers across time zones.
- Ability to work on-site at our Hayward, CA facility five days per week.
Pay Range: $95,000 - $105,000
*Base salary only. Salary is dependent on multiple factors including, but not limited to, experience and location.
**Additional compensation may include equity, bonuses, stipends, medical, dental, vision, 401(k), and long-term disability insurance.
