u/Aesthetic_Odyssey

If I am part of a team standing up a repair line for medical devices, whose job is it to determine how many of each component needed in repair go into a bin or drawer and which bin/drawer they go in? I believe this would require knowledge of component dimensions, drawer/bin dimensions, and also and understanding of repair process to maximize efficiency of component layout (for example, don’t have screws in 3 different drawers etc). I am asking because this sounds like a job for a service or repair engineer. I am a buyer/planner responsible for procuring these components but my leadership seems to think it’s my job to scope drawer dimensions and component dimensions to determine max capacity and layout. I have no idea why this would be the function of a buyer and have no experience or expertise in this matter. Thanks.

Hello. I am a buyer/planner for a billion dollar company. Wanted to get the thoughts and opinions of others in the industry about my job functions/responsibilities as I feel they fall outside of the scope of my job title. Apart from the standard demand planning responsibilities, I am currently being tasked with:

-standing up MRP as a department for the first time. This includes technical setup, submitting a BRD, doing UAT to ensure it is working, communicating with IT regularly on pain points and providing solutioning to IT (they are unhelpful at times) which usually involves just accepting manual work-arounds/deviations. This feels more like a business analyst task. Never heard a buyer do this.

-standing up direct purchasing as a department. Again this involves the same technical implementation as above, which I feel is out of scope of a usual buyer/planner understanding. How many of you came into a role where that all was already set up? We rely on another team to procure for us and communicate requirements manually through spreadsheets. My leadership wants to change that and have tasked me with driving all technical implementation despite my limited experience.

-extracting raw data from ERP system to determine demand and inform forecasting. We have no tools or resources (such as IBM planning or even a data/analytics department) to provide this. No dashboards to automate data extraction. Prone to user error and again feels like most companies have resources for this. Other departments within my company use these tools but for whatever reason we don’t.

-standing up global supply network system. Implementing MRP then using it to globally align on planning, even though many of our subsidiaries operate outside of our ERP system. I am aware that entire global supply network planning teams exist for this yet I am solely responsible. The company has a SNP team yet we are not leveraging them for support.

-warehouse footprint planning. Working with engineering to determine volume/envelope size of new product to inform warehouse holdings requirements of the finished goods materials I will eventually purchase. Again, in a billion dollar company, is this not what a logistics team is there for?

-manufacturing line holdings. Determining how many components each drawer on a line can hold to inform how much of each component I should procure to fill the drawer; aren’t there engineers or others who would have more knowledge in this? Additionally this is for a line that I am not onsite at. How would I do this virtually? Doesn’t feel like a buyer planner task.

I am tasked with doing all of this while making around 80k/year in a HCOL area. There is only one other person on my team and while they are paid the same amount as I do (I saw the salary range when they were hired) because they are newer they are not being tasked with any of these complex projects. I feel like many of these process improvement projects are something a senior level/supervisor/manager should be handling and I definitely feel like I am not being paid for the level of work, and because I have proven myself I am now the go to for any random work that my manager can’t/wont assign to anyone else. Other departments within our company have these resources but i am being tasked to do all these multiple different job functions because our team is smaller.

Can anyone provide insight or thoughts based on their experience? Thanks!!

Is it down for anyone else? The logo page loads but then it’s just a black screen with a spinning load wheel

Hello, my 2015 Mazda3 with 100k miles just recently started having a very stiff brake when I go to push to start for the first time in the day. It didn’t use to feel this stiff. I am not pumping the brake, battery is fine, brakes appear to work normal after start. It’s just odd that suddenly the brake is super hard to push down upon first start up of the day. Any help would be greatly appreciated