This is a multifaceted role requiring a blend of technical literacy and a proactive spirit to manage a fast-paced startup environment during our scaling phase. You will work with limited guidance to professionalize our supply chain workflows.
● Act as the primary point of contact for technical suppliers, managing all communications regarding pricing, quality issues, lead times, and contract terms.
● Independently manage the purchasing for robot-specific commodities: PCBs, custom cables, metallic and non-metallic components.
● Lead the evolution of our material tracking from manual spreadsheets into professionalized workflows, preparing the organization for future ERP implementation.
● Partner with the CTO in Zürich and the Head of Supply Chain in Shanghai to ensure engineering requirements are perfectly translated into production plans.
● Proactively identify supply chain risks, such as raw material shortages or price surges, and develop decisive mitigation strategies.
● Assist engineers in making the right “make vs. buy” decisions and provide detailed cost-justification studies for high-value orders.
● Support the transition of hardware from the concept/prototype phase into volume production by managing initial vendor technical reviews.
● Ensure all procured parts meet RIVR’s high standards for durability, performance, and safety requirements.
● Communicate findings and constructively propose ideas or corrections to hardware specifications to non-technical partners.
● Optimize best practices for validation and test processes related to incoming hardware.
● Track supplier part delivery status to ensure quality and timeliness.
● Maintain supplier relationships and continuously feed industrial insights back into the engineering backlog.
● Cooperate with suppliers from Europe, China and the USA.