Purchasing Agent

Job Description

Job Description

Purchasing Agent

Facility: Trenton Plants

• Follow all applicable environmental, health and safety rules and procedures and immediately report all dangerous situations, near-misses, and injuries.

• Buyer responsibilities include sourcing and procuring goods and services—such as raw materials, consumables, and MRO supplies—while ensuring cost, quality, delivery, and compliance requirements are met.
• Builds and manages strong supplier relationships by fostering open communication, monitoring performance, resolving issues promptly, and ensuring suppliers meet quality, delivery, and compliance expectations
• Reviews and processes approved requisitions, verifying pricing accuracy and appropriate vendor selection. Communicates with vendors to obtain product information, including pricing, availability, and delivery schedules.
• Negotiates with suppliers to obtain competitive pricing, optimal terms, and overall best value for the organization.
• Analyzes daily MRP recommendations to determine purchasing requirements and converts planned orders into firm purchase orders while maintaining optimal inventory levels and supporting production schedules.
• Continuously monitors current pricing against market benchmarks—using three competitive quotes—and ensures compliance with corporate requirements.
• Prepares purchase orders and requests for quotes, maintaining accurate records of all transactions and quotations.
• Reviews RFQ proposals to ensure costs comply with budgetary constraints and purchasing authority levels, escalating to the Purchasing Manager when appropriate.
• Maintains accurate manual and electronic procurement records, including services purchased, costs, delivery details, product quality or performance data, and purchase order files.
• Addresses defective or non‑conforming goods or services by collaborating with Quality Control, end users, vendors, and other stakeholders to identify root causes and implement corrective actions, ensuring prompt resolution and returns.
• Monitors open purchase orders and daily scheduled receipts to expedite deliveries, verify accuracy, and initiate corrections when required.
• Review and maintain completed purchase order reports, ensuring timely closure of all applicable POs.
• Manages invoice reconciliation by identifying and resolving billing errors, price variances, and shortages through direct coordination with vendors.

This position involves responsibilities with elevated exposure to compliance risks, including potential corruption, fraud, and violations of TotalEnergies’ Code of Conduct. The role requires strict adherence to Hutchinson Internal Controls, ethical standards, active risk identification, and timely reporting of any suspected misconduct. Duties include applying compliance procedures, participating in mandatory ethics training, and ensuring proper due diligence in decision-making and interactions with third parties.

Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice.

• Preferred qualifications include a bachelor’s degree in business, Supply Chain Management, or a related field, or a minimum of five years of experience in Purchasing or Supply Chain.
• Must demonstrate strong public speaking, presentation, and negotiation skills.
• Requires the ability to work independently and the demonstrated strength in decision‑making, motivation, workload management, analytical thinking, and organizational skills.
• Must be able to effectively and professionally communicate with management, staff, and customers and demonstrate sound judgment/reasoning skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office applications.
• Five to ten years of purchasing experience, including work with an ERP system.
• Ability to read and interpret drawings and engineering documents.

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to perform the essential functions of this job successfully.

The employee frequently is required to sit; walk, talk and hear. The employee is occasionally required to climb or balance; stoop, lift and/or move up to 10 pounds and occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, for viewing a computer terminal distance vision, peripheral vision, depth perception vision for driving and ability to adjust focus.

This position is not substantially exposed to adverse environmental conditions

• Safety Glasses conforming to ANSI Z87.1 or higher
• Steel Toe Safety Shoes conforming to OSHA General Industry Standards 29 CFR 1910
• Hearing protection conforming to OSHA General Industry Standards 29 CFR 1910

Hutchinson Industries, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer.

This is an exempt position. Hutchinson Industries, Inc. reserves the right to modify the job description based upon its needs and may require the employee to perform functions beyond those mentioned above. Neither this job description nor any other communication creates an employment contract between Hutchinson Industries, Inc. nor the employee, and either one may terminate employment without notice at any time.