NPI & Bid Lead: Strategic Sourcing & Production Readiness

Eaton; Cheltenham; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Global collaboration

Challenging projects

Career development

Competitive compensation and benefits

Inclusive culture and continuous-impro

Job summary

Eaton Cheltenham is seeking an experienced NPI & Bid Manager to lead the Projects & Bid category within the Supply Chain function. You will steer a Project Procurement team to deliver value through strategic sourcing, supplier engagement, and lifecycle management.

Collaborating with Engineering, Quality, Operations and Programme Management, you will drive design-for-manufacture and design-for-test activities, optimise total cost of ownership and ensure readiness for production transfers.

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading and developing multi-disciplinary procurement or project sourcing teams within a complex engineering or manufacturing environment.
• Strong leadership capability with a track record of driving high performance, developing talent, and aligning team objectives to business strategy.
• Demonstrated ability to influence and collaborate effectively across functions including Engineering, Quality, Operations, and Programme Management.
• Extensive experience in strategic sourcing, supplier management, and category strategy development, ideally within Aerospace, Defence, or other highly regulated sectors.
• Strong commercial acumen with a focus on total cost of ownership, value optimisation, and supplier performance management.
• Proven ability to deliver measurable cost reduction targets and identify long-term value creation opportunities.
• Experience establishing and managing long-term supplier partnerships, including negotiation of complex agreements and intellectual property considerations.
• Deep understanding of New Product Introduction (NPI) and Bid processes, with experience supporting design-for-manufacture (DFM) and design-for-test (DFT) activities.
• Strong understanding of end-to-end product lifecycle management, from concept through to production and sustainment.
• Experience leading production readiness reviews, capacity planning, and make/buy decisions to ensure supply readiness and resilience.
• Proven ability to apply technology enablement and digital procurement tools to improve efficiency and decision-making.

Responsibilities

• Lead & develop the project & bid team.
• Provide status updates on projects and ensure that business priorities are met
• Ensure that parameters and agreements are in place for new product being transferred to production Identify & establish long term supplier partners focussing on the “total cost” of supply, thus establishing mutually beneficial partnerships.
• Align with category managers to reduce supplier base and ensure suppliers are of the correct size and exhibit the expected behaviours and product output (to quality and on time).
• Ensure the team are agile & continually evaluate and monitor market conditions and adjust sourcing strategies accordingly.
• Ensure, through production readiness reviews and capacity plans, that each supplier in the product categories has the ability to meet their commitments and deliver production volumes
• Identify, present and influence Technology Enablement solutions to drive efficiency
• Ensure the NPI & Bid team are supporting and influencing future new designs with Engineering, utilising intelligence and capabilities from our supply chain.
• Maximising the DFM & DFT opportunities to reduce the design cycle, remove costs and thus deliver efficient designs.
• Collaborate & Influence with the equivalent leads in operations, quality, engineering, PM and other functions to meet the business objectives.
• Implement make buy strategies, resulting in “turnkey” supplier solutions, reducing lead times & cost caused by internal processing.
• Continuously identify & deliver efficiency & cost savings
• Report monthly to Head of Sourcing & Resilience on initiatives, opportunities, risks, objective

Job description

Eaton Cheltenham is seeking an experienced NPI & Bid Manager to lead the Projects & Bid category within the Supply Chain function. You will steer a Project Procurement team to deliver value through strategic sourcing, supplier engagement, and lifecycle management.

Collaborating with Engineering, Quality, Operations and Programme Management, you will drive design-for-manufacture and design-for-test activities, optimise total cost of ownership and ensure readiness for production transfers.