Area Director

Flexible Work Policy: The Area Director, Replenishment position has been segmented as Hybrid, meaning the work is a combination of onsite ( 4 days per week) and virtual (1 day per week). This position is based out of our Albuquerque, NM location.

ESSENTIAL RESPONSIBILITIES 

Performance Management Responsibilities

• As an Area Director, Replenishment, you will own and manage all replenishment related performance metrics for your Area.
• Actively engage in Area-level staff meetings on replenishment performance and issue resolution. Represent replenishment at Area staff meetings & own all follow-ups.
• Drive improved performance on the key metrics and provide timely updates to the Area staff on these efforts:
• Target Service Levels: Track and monitor customer service levels for your Area across all categories. Serve as the single point of contact for service requests.
• Optimal Days Inventory on Hand (DIOH): Monitor inventory trends in your Area and work with Buyer team to determine corrective actions for over/ under positions.
• Spoilage & Inventory Adjustment: Track and monitor spoilage, F2F, Inventory cost change (ICC), etc. across all categories.
• Freight Optimization: Manage optimal order patterns and volume to maximize freight savings, while meeting inventory goals

Operations and Execution Responsibilities

• Replenishment Execution: As an Area Director, Replenishment, you will oversee all replenishment and inventory management activities in your Area.
• Inventory Management: Oversee Area Buyers to manage inventory health i.e., gap to target DIOH levels; highlight issues with DIOH target to our Replenishment Center of Excellence (COE)
• Purchase Order (PO) Management: Oversee Area Buyers to ensure POs are issued timely to our vendors with high reliance on Suggested Order Quantities (SOQ) and optimal parameters.
• Root Causing Stock Outs: Actively work with buyer team to root cause and address major stock outs & anticipated shorts; finalize recovery actions for long term outages.
• Replenishment Operations: Oversee Operations Support Specialists to ensure timely updates / changes to the POs and arrival to the DCs; help escalate issues to transportation, DC operations and merchandising teams for significant supply delays; work with buyers to communicate major issues to Sales and Replenishment leadership.
• Billing and Costing: Work with Buyer team to resolve discrepancies through CASIS.
• Area Operations: Provide local ownership & accountability for overall service performance and special events.
• Service Requests:  Ensure Replenishment related service requests are assigned timely to the correct Support Specialists and actioned within the response SLA; Work with Buyer team to determine allocation priorities for significantly constrained items.
• Supporting Area Sales: Work with your Buyers and Support Specialist team to ensure local sales events are well supported and orchestrated; Partner with Sales and Merchandising to manage demand forecast and ensure preparedness for key events.
• Customer & Items Transitions:  Oversee major customer transitions (start-up & ramp-down) and assortment transitions by providing Buyer team with the needed process expertise and facilitating cross-functional support.
• Area Specific Service Issues: Triaging & resolving acute/ seasonal challenges, e.g., hurricanes, fire business, education ramp-up, etc.

Team Leadership Responsibilities

You will have the opportunity to manage a large team of Replenishment Leads, Buyers, and Operations Support Specialists for your Area. Specifically, you will:

• Oversee, manage, and monitor all Replenishment activities of your team.
• Ensure coordination and information flow between Buyers & Support Specialists.
• Build a strong culture of customer service, collaboration, performance, and continuous improvement within your team.
• Provide coaching and process guidance to your team; when needed, work closely with Center of Excellence (COE) teams to bring the required expertise.
• Represent your team on regular performance evaluations and help build a strong talent pipeline within the replenishment function.
• Provide regular 1x1 feedback to your team based on cross-functional inputs.

Process & Continuous Improvement Responsibilities

As a member of the Replenishment leadership team, you will help drive process consistency and build competency within the team:

• Systems Trust and Reliance: Coach the Buyer team to drive high reliance and trust on systems (e.g., SCPO) for planning and buying activities. Capture team feedback and escalate to COE and systems team to fix parameters and/ or configuration.
• Competency Development: Identify required process, analytics, and system training needs within your team; work with Replenishment leadership and COE to co-develop those competencies and bring those trainings to your team.
• Subject Matter Expertise: Assume subject matter expertise in certain process Areas by helping build process playbooks, driving process excellence and conducting trainings.
• Continuous Improvement: Share your findings, operational learnings, and process improvement opportunities with your peer group and Replenishment Center of Excellence (COE).

SUPERVISION

Responsible for the Buyers, Replenishment Leads, and Operations Support Specialists for your Area

RELATIONSHIPS

This role sits in our Supply chain organization, within our Replenishment Team. Given the cross-functional nature of this role, you will build and maintain communication with multiple functions within US Foods:

• Replenishment Leadership: You will report into the Senior Director, Region Replenishment, who oversees replenishment for the entire Region. You will interact with the Region Replenishment leader on a frequent basis to update on Area level performance as well as engage on key issues that need leadership involvement to resolve or escalate.
• Replenishment Center of Excellence (COE): You will provide your team with ongoing, timely support and expertise on demand forecasting, buying optimization, inventory optimization, and systems configuration.
• Area Leadership: On a day-to-day basis, you will work closely with Area leadership team, including the Area President; you will be a key member of the Area leadership staff meetings and represent replenishment as function on that meeting.
• Additional functions you will work closely with:
• Merchandising: Vendor, category, and assortment related aspects
• DC Operations: DC inbound, slotting, and outbound related aspects
• Local Sales: Area specific service challenges and recovery actions
• Transportation: Inbound freight and pick-up delays
• Finance & Costing: Cost and pricing related aspects
• National Sales Support Team: Setting up new customers & fielding new orders for national accounts.

WORK ENVIRONMENT

• Inside office
• Up to 20% travel, as determined by business need.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in business, supply chain, or related fields, or related experience and/or military experience
• 7 years of work experience managing operations and leading teams within core supply chain functions, specifically supply planning, inventory management, vendor management purchasing, or other food service/ distribution related functions such as merchandising, category management, and/or sales operations.
• Strong interpersonal skills
• Ability to manage & coach large team of supply chain talent.
• Ability to collaborate cross-functionally and draw linkages with business impact.
• Familiarity with analytics and supply chain planning and buying systems.
• Ability to synthesize key information, present in both sales meetings and customer facing calls to influence key decisions.
• Proficient at Microsoft Office i.e., Excel, Word, etc.

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