Tim Merritt Email and Phone Number

Category Manager responsible for the implementation and on-going management of specific product categories to support the corporate-wide category management strategy. Partner with internal and external customers to implement the processes necessary to support product categorization, profitability improvement and revenue growth.

• I am currently responsible for the forecasting, ordering and logistics for a new sourcing company Owens and Minor opened in China.• As part of the start up process, I was involved with the selection and implementation of a 250K square foot 3PL warehouse in Long Beach, California, which is used for the deconsolidation of items coming from China.• I manage the end to end supply chain for over 400 products sourced from various factories in China. In our first year of operations, we brought 500 containers into the US for distribution to customers and maintained a customer service level of over 99.5%. This role includes coordinating forecasts with the factories to ensure they can procure raw materials and reserve production capacity to meet our needs.• I work closely with sourcing managers to forecast new items, as well as current items that are either over- or under-performing their current plan.

• Accepted role as first Business Implementation Analyst for new 3PL division of Owens and Minor.• Developed and implemented new Red Prairie WMS, including coordinating with the IT team on data validation, as well as establishing SOP for operating the new system.• Established process for billing transportation transactions to the end clients, including renegotiating LTL contracts to obtain better shipping rates. This assisted the company to make significant gains in the monthly transportation margin. • Worked with the Director of Financial Operations on various RFPs for different clients, several of which created new clients that have added additional revenue to the company.

Operationally coordinate inventory functions at 712 retail stores.•Managed two Inventory Operations Analyst positions and two Inventory Coordinators. Oversaw career development and day-to-day duties.•Coordinated a multi million-dollar returns process between the corporate office, the product return center and the retail stores. When I took the process over the company was only getting about 60% of the requested units back from the stores on any given return. In working with the team and the field management I was able to raise this to 82%. This 22% increase allowed the company to collect an additional $66 million dollars a year in returns credit.•Managed inventory integrity through streamlining processes; creating standard operating procedures and reporting to help management make informed business decisions. •Created business reporting using Structured Query Language (SQL) allowing Inventory Analysts to ensure inventory is allocated to appropriate stores.

Created business process to facilitate the removal of excess inventory at 712 store locations.•Created Access database using Structured Query Language (SQL) to apply multi-variable logarithms calculating proper levels of inventory to remain on location. •Coordinated the removal of approximately $25 million per month in inventory.•Helped maintain and/or exceed sales and inventory turns budget. •Created scorecards/dashboards used to rate behavior of vendor managed inventory partners.