Niels Martin is a multi-lingual, multi-cultural leader with over 20 years of Procurement and Operations experience across various industries and geographies. Niels has led successful change programs in Fortune 50 companies, the public sector and small business / start-ups.
In the Procurement arena he successfully drives savings to the bottom line by bringing the formality of Direct procurement into the Indirect arena. Niels has developed, customized and implemented solutions and strategies for clients in the Operations, Procurement and Sourcing arena, focused primarily on Sourcing and Category Management, Materials & Inventory Management, Benchmarking Services, Data Standardization and Inventory Optimization.
Niels is an experienced procurement advisor who is able to combine expertise and experience to create value for his clients through upgrading procurement practices and organizational structure and processes. He is a hands-on practitioner who has not only identified, but delivered value in excess of $15 million annual savings to clients in a single year through self-performed engagements.
Operations & Procurement: Heavy Manufacturing | Durable Goods | Defense | Aerospace | Electronics | Food & Beverage | CPG | Plastics/Composites | Pharmaceuticals.
Relevant Career Highlights
- Independent Consultant –Developed, customized and implemented solutions and strategies for clients in the Operations, Procurement and Sourcing arena, focused primarily on Sourcing and Category Management, Materials & Inventory Management, Benchmarking Services, Data Standardization and Inventory Optimization.
- Aerospace & Defense — Responsible for management and development of key suppliers and critical components and sub- assemblies on proprietary defense programs. Developed alternate sources of supply as programs moved from proof of concept through low-rate to full-scale production. Responsible for mechanical design of key components, specification development, capability studies and design optimization. Primary point of contact with customer for product acceptance activities.
- Food and Beverage – Factory design and construction and logistics/distribution-related activities. Key member of design/build team for a frozen food factory – the largest investment in a greenfield facility by the world’s largest food company, worldwide. Developed strategy and negotiated contracts for building, infrastructure, and major equipment lines. Member of factory design and construction team for infant formula factory.
- Chemical Industry — Developed market-based information relative to the anticipated effects on the industrial/manufacturing supply chain of a potential merger in the chemical industry. Managed supplier relationship relative to Specialty Chemical (water treatment, cleaning and sanitation) suppliers for the world’s largest food company on a global basis.
- Entrepreneur – Founded a bottling company and grew this business into a regional brand with distribution in eight states and several foreign countries.
Relevant Projects
- In a $2 Billon Food and Beverage organization, designed and implemented new purchasing organizational structure resulting in streamlined and lower cost processes. Implemented and completed transition to Ariba e-commerce system for all indirect material purchases, designed workflows, drove catalog development.
- At a major manufacturer of commercial aircraft led the redesign and implementation of new System for Managing for the company’s Aircraft Delivery Center. Developed and enhanced reporting metrics and dashboards, developed new daily and weekly cadences and developed approach for out-year capacity / capability improvement plan development.
- At the world’s largest manufacturer of commercial aircraft, led Continuous Improvement workstream at modification center to support completion of early-manufacture new model aircraft in parallel to ongoing production of current revision model. Developed approach for revised Induction of aircraft into modification center to optimize production slots. Developed and implemented provisioning plan to support production activities through JIT delivery of parts and supplies to the production line.
- At a construction organization, Developed and implemented a Procurement Organization and Process strategy for a $650 million revenue Engineering, Design and Construction Management firm specializing in the design and construction of food manufacturing and refrigerated storage facilities, the largest industrial refrigeration contractor in the country and a key player in the Energy and Utilities infrastructure sectors. Activities included: the design and implementation of a procurement organization and development of an overall procurement and supply chain strategy. Instituted best practices, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and standardized across multiple divisions. Interfaced with key customers to aggregate spend and develop a collaborative buying facility. Developed and specified key enabling technologies (e- commerce, spend analytics, inventory optimization, etc.)
- At one of the largest Nuclear Energy producers in North America, provided Spend Analytics using historical spend data to develop a new Spend Categorization approach, and to determine appropriate procurement organizational approach to manage spend categories across the enterprise.
Education/Certifications/Publications/Organizations
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BSc, Mechanical Engineering, Brigham Young University
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Languages: fluent in Afrikaans, Spanish and French.
- Harvard/MIT Program on Negotiations – trained professional negotiator.