Shipyard Supply Chain Manager

Job Description

Job Description

Supply Chain Manager - Shipbuilding

Job Summary

A growing shipbuilder is hiring a Supply Chain Manager to run the full material lifecycle for new vessel construction, from purchasing and vendor management through planning, scheduling, warehousing, and delivery to the production floor. You will make sure the right materials arrive at the right time and cost, in step with engineering, project budgets, and build schedules. This is a hands-on leadership seat for someone who can bring order to a complex environment, coach a team, work through competing demands across departments, and keep leadership informed with clear, data-driven reporting.

Responsibilities

• Own the buying, scheduling, and material management teams, defining goals, roles, and standards of performance for each.
• Design and document the workflows, staffing structure, and training the department needs to support today's projects and the ones coming next.
• Translate engineering drawings, parts lists, and work packages into a coordinated procurement, receiving, storage, and kitting plan tied to when production actually needs each item.
• Run the day-to-day purchasing cycle: requisition review, quotes and bid comparison, PO issuance and approval, follow-up with vendors, and clean recordkeeping.
• Source, vet, and negotiate with suppliers; measure their performance and hold them accountable when they miss.
• Keep a close watch on outstanding and late orders, and get ahead of items with long lead times or schedule-critical impact.
• Stay on top of build schedules, shop priorities, engineering deadlines, and labor planning reports, adjusting material plans as conditions change.
• Work side by side with engineering, project management, production, quality, and finance to clear roadblocks before they slow the yard down.
• Manage warehouse operations end to end, including receiving, storage, preservation, staging, shipping, and moving material around the site.
• Safeguard inventory accuracy and traceability through regular counts, audits, and reconciliation, and fix root causes when discrepancies appear.
• Deliver weekly and monthly updates covering buying activity, spend against budget, material readiness, schedule risk, inventory health, and vendor performance.
• Build a set of metrics around lead time, cost, on-time delivery, inventory accuracy, and responsiveness to internal customers, and use them to drive improvement.
• Look for ways to cut cost, simplify processes, standardize parts and practices, and improve how material moves through the yard, always with safety and quality as non-negotiables.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in a business, engineering, operations, or supply chain field, or comparable experience in place of a degree.
• Seven or more years of increasing responsibility in purchasing, planning, or material management, ideally within shipbuilding, marine or offshore construction, heavy industrial manufacturing, or defense programs.
• Three or more years managing people, including experience leading other supervisors or managers across multiple disciplines.
• A solid track record working with project timelines, budgets, parts lists, purchase orders, vendor negotiations, inventory systems, and management reporting.
• Expert-level Excel; comfortable working in Microsoft Project and in ERP or MRP platforms for planning, purchasing, and inventory.
• Clear communicator and confident negotiator with strong analytical, organizational, and problem-solving instincts.
• Ideal candidates have worked directly in a shipyard or vessel repair setting, especially where several projects run at once and depend on engineered, long-lead equipment.
• Supply chain credentials such as CPIM, CSCP, CPSM, or similar are welcome.
• Exposure to quality systems, supplier quality, controlled or certified material handling, and lean or continuous improvement practices is a plus.