James Knowlden Email & Phone Number

Denkingen, Baden-Württemberg, DE

Rotterdam, South Holland, NL

• Engaged to make a step change in Purchasing focus across the retail and OEM divisions of Fluiconnecto and drive the management strategy of FLC forward.
• Performed a deep review of the supplier base, and how purchasing worked across all global locations. The aim of which was to maximise the leverage of the supplier spends and make purchasing more effective leading to.
• Delivered savings over 400k€ (3,5% of manageable send) in the first 12 months, and reduced stock by circa 3.5m€ (8% of total stock).

Vélizy-Villacoublay, Île-de-France, FR

• Deputies for General manager and present weekly and monthly KPIs when the GM was not on site.
• Lead purchasing across 5 locations, to reduce material costs, launch new projects and resolve supplier issues
• Active participation in the management of the site and contribution to the annual budget planning and reporting.
• Recruit and train buyers for site and project purchasing activities
• Take the lead to project manage the recovery of a complex supply chain following a fire in key supplier. Including running the operations in the supplier base for several months,
• Implement the Group Purchasing methods for 4 locations following an acquisition in 2017.

Woking, Surrey, GB

• A central group role to oversee Strategic Procurement and procurement systems across the TT group of companies.
• Oversee strategic procurement and systems across 26 manufacturing locations and four business units.
• Manage group spend of £280million on production materials and indirect spend of circa £50million.
• Develop and implement three year road map, to reduce supply chain risk, maximise leverage, and implement supply chain management tools.
• Work within a Matrix organization structure to deliver procurement strategic and tactical KPI benefits.
• Manage teams to deliver Direct materials, Indirect materials and Capital spend, profit improvement plans

Woking, Surrey, GB

• Responsible for AB Elektronik Purchasing and Supplier quality needs globally.Managed purchasing and supplier quality for facilities in Germany, China, India, and Mexico.
• Oversaw purchasing spend of €100million, and supervised 70 Employees globally.
• Led transition for European Supplier base to a more global and financially acceptable supplier base.
• Developed and implemented a strategy of Commodity Purchasing to lever economic benefits from new supplier base and ensure internal customer expectations were exceeded.

• Russian Projects.
• Responsible for Purchasing activities in 3 locations in Russia, all locations are new to Magna within the past 12 months ( 1 acquisition, 1 Brownfield and 1 green field).
• Select, and recruit a purchasing team, in 3 location America, Russia and Germany (Currently 10)
• Identify knowledge, systems, process gaps and differences between Russian Business practice and Central European systems
• Consider and implement appropriate purchasing tools in an systematic way.
• Lead Purchasing activities across Transfer business ( USA to Russia) and new business

US

• Responsible for Purchasing and Supply chain Managment on Global Automotive projects, between Germany, North America and Russia
• Established Purchasing and SQA teams in the Russian Divisions of Magna

US

• As part of the senior management team I have responsibility for planning the spend for raw materials and forecasting and reviewing cost reduction across three sites. This supports the business plan, reviewed monthly.
• Capital procurement (circa £10m in 2006) is managed via a cross-functional team from Purchasing and Engineering. Plant is specified by engineers with commercial negotiations and contracts lead by Purchasing including.
• I lead a team of 8 people including module buyers for Injection moulded components, electrics, pressings, castings, safety and heating, encompassing total vehicle interior integration.
• Purchasing has responsibility for supplier management and cost control for component tooling and part supply contracts.➤ UK Group Commodity Manager
• Responsible for current production purchasing across six sites and integration with Intier's central European purchasing team.
• UK spend responsibility including commodities influenced significantly by currency and commodity price fluctuations e.g. oil, steel and copper.

• Reported to the Programs Director with total responsibility for cost and supplier quality across all projects. Team size varied with a peak of twenty.
• Within Menard Engineering, I had responsibility to lead continuous improvement and VA / VE activities.
• Managed the team's development and motivation using result-orientated objectives, introducing a 'can do' attitude within the team.
• Co-ordinated teams working on a variety of road car projects, ranging from the packaging of new technologies within a vehicle for breakdown services to development of a full vehicle utilising digital simulation and.
• As member of the Project Management team, I was instrumental in ensuring cross fertilisation of ideas and timely introduction of activities.
• I worked in Australia on a 3-month placement during the launch phase of a vehicle for Holden Australia 'fire fighting'; responsible for the supply chain and quality management of failing suppliers.

• I reported directly to the General Manager, responsible for working with the current supplier base to reduce total acquisition costs.
• The department sourced all raw materials, responsible for negotiating and tracking the procured piece price and tooling costs for production of car dashboards and door panel trim.

• Responsible for consumables and stationery on six sites with a spend of £500,000. I changed the purchasing method to a blanket order call off system saving significant overhead and administration costs and developing.
• Liased between departments to meet the procurement and cost requirements for pre-production builds of facias and door panels.

• I ran the stores, meeting suppliers to negotiate price and sales to the agricultural industry.In order to meet deadlines on engineering projects, my other responsibilities included customer liaison, assignment of tasks.
• Working on such engineering projects I was able to translate academic theory into practice in a small batch production environment.

B Eng, Engineering

B.Eng. (Honours) 2.1, Combined Engineering

Education record

Education record