Purchasing Planning Assistant Manager

Toyota Boshoku Corporation is an innovative automotive interior parts manufacturer. Our product lineup includes seats, headliners, filtration and powertrain components, as well as textiles and exterior components. With more than 50.000 colleagues working in our 90 group companies, we strive to provide a safe and comfortable automobile interior space for people all over the world.

From our regional headquarter based in Zaventem (Brussels area, Belgium), our team ensures the development and supports manufacturing of high-quality car interior components.

To reinforce our foothold in Europe and Africa, we are looking for individuals who have the courage and creativity to set lofty goals and continually challenge themselves to attain them.

We are looking for a: Purchasing Planning Assistant Manager

The Purchasing Planning Assistant Manager role is a strategic coordination function within the broader purchasing department. It acts as a bridge between buyers and supplier production management teams, ensuring alignment across sourcing, cost planning, and supplier performance management.

Responsibilities:

• Team Leadership & Oversight: Supervise and coordinate the daily activities of 1–2 direct reports, ensuring alignment with departmental goals and performance standards.
• Mentorship & Development: Provide guidance, coaching, and professional development support to junior team members, fostering their growth and enhancing team capabilities.
• Supporting the department manager in budget management activities

Planning & Coordination activities:

• Project activities coordination: Ensuring suppliers are selected on time and monitoring project progress.
• Preparing RFQ (Request for Quotation) packages, including terms and conditions, sustainability requirements, and cost planning elements. While buyers handle the actual negotiations, planners ensure that all necessary data and documentation are in place to support informed decision-making.
• Regular Purchasing Activities coordination

Purchasing Function Overall KPI visualization:

• Colleting and consolidating supplier KPIs (e.g., quality, delivery, cost, sustainability) from various departments.

Sustainability is a major focus within the team. The biggest challenge is reducing Co2 emissions in the supply chain, which is not limited to achieving carbon neutrality, but also includes broader aspects such as:

• Carbon emission reductions (including compliance with new regulations like CBAM and EUDR).
• Human rights considerations.
• Securing cybersecurity issues.
• Supplier assessment in regards of sustainability aspects

Business Excellence:

• Regional Process Standardization
• Process Flow creation
• Efficiency improvements including digitalization efforts

Profit Plan & Annual Price Review Coordination:

• Raw Material Market index update
• Coordination of data & report
• Plan & Actual Monitoring: making sure purchasing costs meet company targets, proposing strategies to achieve this.
• SAP based data analysis

Audit:

• Internal Audit: Creating/ updating Process flow & accessing procedure maturity & conformity
• External Audit: Representing purchasing in external audits (e.g., IATF, EFQM, TSAX), explaining processes and compliance.

Supplier Relation management:

• Conducting engagement surveys with suppliers, analyzing feedback, and driving improvements.
• Support supplier onboarding, standardization of expectations, and communication of sustainability and compliance requirements.
• Authorization matrix management

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Business Administration, Economics, or related field.
• More than 5 years of experience in purchasing or relevant function within the automotive industry.
• Proficiency in English.
• Advanced SAP skills.
• Proficiency in MS Office tools (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook).

What we offer

• Competitive salary in line with your experience;
• Permanent contract;
• Company car- Toyota Yaris Cross hybrid
• Flexible working schedule (between 7:00-10:00), working from home 2x a week;
• Hospitalization and Group Insurance;
• Meal vouchers (8 euro) & Eco-cheques (250 euro);
• Net allowance 100 euro per month;
• International work environment;
• Open communication and continuous learning opportunities.