Purchasing Specialist

Role Summary

Olli Brands Inc. is a GMP-track cannabis edibles manufacturer. The Purchasing Specialist owns the buying cycle end to end — converting netted requirements into purchase orders, confirming lead-time coverage, expediting what is late, and holding supplier price, terms and contract renewals. The role buys against a published plan rather than against requests: the weekly planning cycle produces the requirement, and this role is accountable for it arriving on the date the plan assumed, at the price the budget assumed.

The role sits in Operations, reporting to the Operations Manager, and is a peer to the Demand Planner — the plan is theirs, the purchase order is this role’s. It works daily with Inventory Control, Production and Scheduling, Warehouse and Shipping, Quality and Finance. It suits someone commercially confident and administratively exact: comfortable holding a position with a supplier pushing an increase, and equally comfortable keeping several hundred open order lines right to the line.

Key Responsibilities

1. Convert the netted requirements from the weekly planning cycle into purchase orders — raising, confirming, maintaining and closing orders for raw materials, packaging, excise stamps, consumables, MRO and services — and obtain written supplier acknowledgement of quantity, price and date on every line.
2. Own lead-time coverage: maintain supplier lead times, minimum order quantities and order multiples against the item master, and flag to the Demand Planner any requirement the [13-week] horizon cannot cover, including artwork approval and excise stamp issuance.
3. Answer purchasing’s lines on the weekly constraint list with an owner, a date and a confirmed supplier commitment before the [Monday] decision review, and attend that review and the daily attainment stand-up.
4. Expedite, de-expedite and reschedule open orders as the plan moves, and give written notice the moment a supplier date will not hold rather than reporting it after the fact.
5. Run the consumables kanban — daily ordering against bin triggers, trigger quantities maintained from actual usage, and the trigger set reviewed at [monthly] intervals.
6. Hold supplier commercial up to an approval limit of $[xx]: price, terms, payment conditions, service levels and contract renewals. Prepare and lead negotiations, test every proposed increase against the contract, the index and the price history, and escalate anything above the limit or any multi-year commitment to Operations before committing.
7. Maintain the approved supplier list with Quality — qualification status, specifications, certificates of analysis and GMP documentation current before a supplier is used — and confirm that materials bought under Olli’s cannabis licence carry the documentation required at receipt.
8. Resolve receiving discrepancies, quality holds, short shipments, damage and invoice mismatches through to credit or replacement, with Inventory Control, Quality and Finance.
9. Run sourcing events for new, second-source or substitute items — RFQ, quote comparison, sample and trial co-ordination with Quality and Production — and present a recommendation on landed cost, lead time and supply risk, not unit price alone.
10. Keep the purchasing record complete and current — orders, confirmations, price files, contracts, renewal dates and supplier correspondence in the agreed structure — act as purchasing’s process owner through the ERP implementation, and work to GMP, site security and Ontario OHSA requirements at all times.

Required Qualifications

• Post-secondary education in supply chain, business or a related field, or equivalent experience; able to pass the site screening required under Olli’s cannabis licence.
• 5+ years in purchasing or procurement in a manufacturing environment, including direct responsibility for supplier price and terms — not order placement alone.
• A demonstrated negotiation record — an increase held or reversed, terms improved, spend consolidated — and the evidence to show it.
• Working knowledge of MRP/ERP purchasing: requirements, order policy, minimum order quantities, lead-time maintenance and the full order lifecycle.
• Experience in a regulated manufacturing environment — cannabis, food, natural health products, pharmaceutical or cosmetics — with supplier qualification and documentation requirements.
• Strong Excel and the discipline to keep a large open-order book accurate; comfortable buying from a published plan and a constraint list rather than from ad-hoc requests.
• Available on-site [5 days], with supplier contact across time zones and occasional overtime at period ends and through launch periods.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in a licensed cannabis facility, including excise stamp ordering and the documentation the license requires.
• Packaging procurement — films, pouches, cartons, labels and over-label — including artwork approval and proof cycles and their effect on lead time.
• SCMP, CPSM, CPIM or equivalent designation, held or in progress.
• Experience as purchasing process owner through an ERP implementation.
• Kanban, min/max or vendor-managed replenishment for consumables and MRO.

Key Competencies

• Commercial nerve — holds a position with a supplier under pressure and keeps the relationship
• Administrative exactness — the open-order book is right, every line, every week
• Early warning — raises a date that will slip while there is still time to act on it
• Evidence over assertion — an increase is tested, not absorbed
• Plan discipline — buys to the published plan and escalates rather than quietly re-planning
• Cross-functional credibility — read as a partner by Quality, Production and Finance

Working Conditions

Primarily office-based on an active cannabis edibles manufacturing site, with daily time in receiving, the warehouse and on the production floor. Gowning and PPE as required by area [hairnet and beard net, smock, safety footwear, hearing and eye protection], with full compliance to GMP, sanitation and personal-hygiene requirements and to the Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Act. Site access and personnel screening are governed by Olli’s cannabis licence. Day shift, with supplier contact across time zones; period ends, contract renewal cycles and new-product launches carry peak workload and occasional overtime. Occasional supplier site visits and audits.