Materials Specialist - Supply Chain

About the role

Kraft Heinz is looking for a Materials Specialist to join its Supply Chain team in San Jose, Costa Rica. The role ensures the right materials are available in the right quantity and at the right time to support production, while keeping inventory healthy and supporting service, cost and working capital goals. It covers materials planning, inventory management, supplier coordination, MRP execution and production continuity.

Key responsibilities

• Plan and ensure raw and packaging materials are available according to production needs for internal and external manufacturing.
• Create and manage purchase orders, monitor deliveries and supplier commitments.
• Monitor material requirements through MRP and investigate discrepancies in master data, BOMs, calendars, lead times and planning parameters.
• Manage daily material deliveries against production needs, supplier availability and warehouse capacity.
• Maintain and optimize inventory and stock policies, balancing service levels, working capital and supply continuity.
• Identify shortages, excess inventory, obsolete materials and supply risks, and develop mitigation plans and contingency scenarios.
• Track and analyze inventory performance, consumption versus plan, lead-time deviations and other planning indicators.
• Partner with Procurement and suppliers on MOQs, supply constraints, service levels and inventory optimization.
• Support materials and SKU master data in SAP, and take part in innovation and value engineering projects for new product launches.
• Translate long-term production plans into material requirements, inventory projections and supplier capacity needs.
• Contribute to continuous improvement through automation, data cleansing, planning parameter optimization and process improvements.
• Provide backup support to Production Supply Planning when required.

Required profile

• Bachelor's degree in Industrial Engineering, Supply Chain, Logistics, Business or a related field.
• About 2-4 years of experience in materials planning, supply planning, inventory management, procurement planning or a related supply chain role.
• Experience with MRP and SAP; SAP MDG is a plus.
• Knowledge of inventory management, production planning, stock policies and materials availability.
• Spanish and English proficiency for a regional environment.

Required skills

• Intermediate Excel; advanced skills highly desirable.
• Power BI, Tableau or other BI tools is a plus.
• Analytical, proactive, organized and able to work under pressure and with suppliers.