Supply Chain Manager

Job Description

Job Description

Description:

Supply Chain Manager

Beachwood, OH | Full-time

Reports to: Director of Operations

About Helix Linear

Helix Linear Technologies designs and manufactures high-precision motion control systems for industries where performance matters most, including aerospace, medical devices, defense, and advanced automation. Our products power mission-critical applications where reliability and precision down to ±0.0001 inches make all the difference.

Our vision is to engineer what's possible in motion, with precision, integrity, and purpose. We pursue that vision by designing, machining, grinding, and assembling critical motion components in-house, including precision ball screws and linear systems. Our clean, climate-controlled facility is equipped with advanced manufacturing equipment including Citizen Swiss lathes, multi-axis CNC mills, precision grinders, and specialized assembly and test systems.

Helix is growing and investing in new equipment, advanced processes, the people and the systems required to scale with discipline. As we expand, we're building a world-class precision manufacturing operation — which means higher standards for ownership, communication, urgency, and accountability across every role on the floor.

About the Position

The Supply Chain Manager owns the full material flow into and through Helix; purchasing, planning, scheduling, material handling, and shipping & receiving, as one connected function, not five separate jobs. You lead the buyers, planners, and material handlers who run it. Today these pieces run on tribal knowledge and manual workarounds. Your first job is to fix that: build the planning and scheduling foundation so Epicor data is accurate and trustworthy, and the rest of the supply chain runs off real dates instead of guesswork.

Once scheduling is in shape, your mandate expands. You'll lead Helix's move to Epicor Cloud and evaluate where automation and AI can remove manual work from purchasing, planning, and inventory; sequenced deliberately, not bolted on before the foundation is solid.

This is a builder's role. You're not maintaining a system that already works; you're standing one up, proving it out, and then scaling it.

Responsibilities

People & Team Leadership

• Hire, coach, and performance-manage your team of buyers, planners, and material handlers; set clear standards and hold people to them.
• Build the function so it does not depend on any single person; cross-train, document the work, and grow bench strength as Helix scales.
• Set the expectation for urgency and follow-through; a missed material date is a missed delivery date, and the team owns it that way.

Purchasing

• Own purchasing for raw material, components, and outside processing; POs, vendor terms, lead times, and cost.
• Build and maintain vendor scorecards; manage supplier performance on quality, delivery, and price.
• Own the approved supplier list; qualify new suppliers, drive supplier corrective action when quality or delivery slips, and remove sources that cannot hold a standard.
• Ensure material certifications, traceability, and country-of-origin documentation arrive with the material and hold up under AS9100 and customer audit, including counterfeit parts prevention for purchased components.
• Negotiate contracts and pricing agreements; qualify alternate sources for critical or long-lead items.

Planning & Scheduling

• Build the foundation first: correct lead times, capacity, and scheduling parameters in Epicor so the schedule reflects reality, not assumption. Advanced Manufacturing owns routing content, operation sequence, work center assignment, and standard times; you own the planning data that runs against it and flag routings that do not match what the floor actually does.
• Own the master schedule and job release; sequence work against actual capacity and priority.
• Drive the floor discipline, job clocking, move reporting, that keeps schedule data trustworthy over time.

Shipping & Receiving

• Own inbound receiving; inspection hand-off, put-away, and outbound shipping, including export classification, denied-party screening, and ITAR/EAR and DFARS documentation for aerospace and defense shipments.
• Manage carrier relationships and freight cost.

Safety & Material Handling Discipline

• Own inventory accuracy; cycle counts, put-away, kitting, and staging, so material is where the schedule needs it, when it needs it.
• Manage WIP flow between operations to prevent bottlenecks and stockouts.
• Own safety in the material handling and shipping areas; forklift and lift equipment certification, racking and load limits, safe lifting, and dock and load securement practices.
• Hold your team to Helix's EHS standards, including FOD and ESD discipline in handling, kitting, and packaging of precision components.
• Investigate incidents and near-misses, drive corrective action, and make sure operators are trained and signed off before running equipment.

Systems & Continuous Improvement

• Once scheduling is reliable, lead the transition to Epicor Cloud.
• Evaluate and pilot AI and automation opportunities across purchasing, planning, and inventory, after the data foundation supports it.
• Build KPI reporting for on-time delivery, inventory turns, and purchase price variance.

Cross-Functional Coordination

• Give Sales the schedule and capacity picture they need to confirm customer delivery dates; you own the date the schedule can actually support, Sales owns the commitment to the customer.
• Work daily with both Production Managers on job priority, material availability, and where the schedule and the floor have drifted apart.
• Partner with Quality on receiving inspection, supplier corrective action, and AS9100 record retention.
• Work with Engineering and Advanced Manufacturing on long-lead material, make-versus-buy, and new part introduction.

Who You Are

• Systems thinker : you see purchasing, planning, scheduling, and logistics as one flow, and you build accordingly, not in silos.
• A builder, not a caretaker: you're energized by creating structure where none exists, not just running what's already there.
• Data-disciplined: you fix the inputs before you trust the outputs, and you don't let a bad number drive a decision.
• Credible across functions : production, engineering, quality, and sales trust your numbers and your follow-through.
• Forward-looking: you know where the function needs to go; cloud ERP, automation, AI, and you know better than to chase it before the basics work.

What You Bring

• 5+ years leading purchasing, planning, or supply chain in a manufacturing environment, ideally high-mix/low-volume or machining. 
• Direct people-management experience; hiring, coaching, and performance management of a purchasing, planning, or material handling team.
• Hands-on ERP/MRP experience, Epicor strongly preferred. 
• Demonstrated experience building planning and scheduling systems from scratch, or fixing broken ones. 
• Comfortable owning purchasing, planning, and logistics as one integrated function, not three separate jobs.
• Familiarity with cloud ERP migrations, and genuine interest in applying AI or automation to supply chain workflows.
• Experience with export control, DFARS, and ITAR/EAR documentation for aerospace and defense shipments.
• Six Sigma or Lean exposure, a plus.
• Familiarity with AS9100 supplier control requirements; approved supplier lists, corrective action, certifications, and traceability.

What Success Looks Like

• Schedule Reliability: Epicor dates match actual job completion the large majority of the time; the schedule is a plan people trust, not a guess.
• On-Time Delivery: measurable contribution to moving OTD from ~65% toward the 90% goal.
• Inventory Accuracy : cycle count accuracy at or above 98%.
• Inventory Health : inventory turns improving against plan without starving the schedule; no line-down events caused by material.
• Supplier Performance : supplier on-time delivery and quality performance trending up; chronic underperformers corrected or replaced.
• Cost Discipline : purchase price variance managed within budget; alternate sources qualified for critical items.
• Systems Maturity: Epicor Cloud transition roadmap built and underway, with early AI/automation pilots identified; only once the scheduling foundation holds.
• Safety & Compliance : no incidents tied to lift equipment, racking, or material handling; near-misses reported and closed, and export documentation clean on every shipment.

Why Join Helix

At Helix, you'll work in a clean, climate-controlled facility with advanced equipment, alongside machinists, engineers, operators, and commercial team members who take pride in their work and hold themselves to high standards.

We offer competitive compensation, comprehensive health, dental, and vision benefits, a retirement savings plan with company match, and paid time off and company holidays. You'll work in a collaborative, onsite team environment with direct access to engineering and leadership, and real opportunities for professional growth within a growing precision manufacturing company.

If you take pride in solving problems, value craftsmanship and accountability, and want to do work where precision and reliability matter, Helix is a place where that work shows.

Helix Linear Technologies is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Due to U.S. export control laws, applicants must be U.S. persons (U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident).

Requirements: