Purchasing Associate

What you'd do

• Purchase Order Administration: Create, review, issue, and maintain purchase orders for aftermarket replacement parts, commercial components, and inventory replenishment.
• Order Book & Delivery Management: Proactively manage supplier order books, track unacknowledged orders, resolve delivery date slippages, and execute order defers, expedites, and cancellations based on customer demand shifts.
• Critical & Emergency Expediting: Interface daily with commercial suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors via phone, email, and supplier portals to accelerate high-priority orders and emergency customer service requests.
• Cost & Invoice Variance Resolution: Review purchase price variances (PPV), investigate PO-to-invoice price discrepancies alongside Accounts Payable, and verify supplier catalog pricing and discount terms.
• Reporting & Data Analytics: Run and analyze weekly open purchase order reports, supplier on-time delivery (OTD) scorecards, past-due order trackers, and inventory replenishment metrics.
• RFQ & Sourcing Support: Issue Requests for Quotation (RFQs) for commercial off-the-shelf components, standard hardware, and replacement parts; summarize vendor quotes, lead times, and terms to support purchasing decisions.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner closely with Aftermarket Customer Service, Parts Sales, Warehouse & Logistics, and Accounting to communicate delivery ETAs, address backorders, and resolve receiving discrepancies.
• Continuous Improvement: Participate in supply chain optimization projects, supplier performance reviews, process standardization, and system enhancement initiatives.
• Travel: Minimal and infrequent (e.g., occasional regional supplier visits or corporate training).

What they want

• Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain Management, Business Administration, Logistics, or a related field; OR an equivalent combination of education and direct purchasing/order management experience.
• Experience: Prior internship, co-op, or 1–2 years of experience in aftermarket parts purchasing, wholesale distribution, retail supply chain, or inventory coordination.
• ERP & Systems Proficiency: Hands-on experience navigating ERP/MRP platforms (e.g., JD Edwards, SAP, Epicor, or similar inventory systems) for purchase order entry, supplier inquiry, and order tracking.
• Analytical Tools: Proficiency in Microsoft Excel (VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, pivot tables, data filtering) to manage large order reports and track supplier delivery performance.
• Customer-Centric Urgency: Strong sense of urgency and ability to prioritize competing customer order requirements in a dynamic, high-mix distribution environment.
• Supplier Communication: Professional written and verbal communication skills with the confidence to negotiate lead-time improvements, hold vendors to delivery dates, and resolve discrepancies.
• Detail-Oriented: Exceptional organizational skills, accurate data entry, and thorough follow-through on open orders and unresolved invoice inquiries.#LI-TM1

About Oshkosh

At Pierce Manufacturing, we build trucks that protect people and communities around the world. To our team, there is no room for anything less than providing the absolute best. Since 1913, building truck bodies on Model T Ford chassis in an old converted church has evolved to creating highly customized, carefully designed and engineering pumpers, aerials, tankers and rescue units that have no equal.