Industrial Cost Control Competency Leader

About the role

Role Mission The Industrial Cost Expert is the catalyst for shifting the company from a traditional purchasing model ("market-driven quote negotiation") into a fact-based, transparent Industrial Purchasing model. The core mission is two-fold: upskilling and coaching operational Merchandisers and factory management teams in minute purchasing methodologies, and auditing factory floors to ensure exact price-to-make calculations while detecting and preventing unethical negotiation behaviours. Key Responsibilities & Activities 1. Team Empowerment & Capability Building Cross-Functional Training: Design and deliver interactive training workshops and roundtables for operational Merchandisers and factory managers on the principles of Minute Purchasing and Cost Per Minute (CPM). Driving a Fact-Based Culture: Transition purchasing teams away from short-term, opportunistic commercial negotiations toward long-term, collaborative, and facts-based partnerships. On-Site Coaching: Mentor teams directly on the factory floor, teaching them how to gather reliable financial statements, establish clear production perimeters, and run diagnostic time-studies 2. Shop-Floor Industrial Cost Management Deploy, monitor, and audit the standard industrial costing framework across production lines: SAM / SMV (Standard Allowed Minutes / Value): Validate and audit standard time-measurements per product. Guide factories in implementing Line Balancing and Quick Change-Over (SMED) to eliminate production bottlenecks. CPM (Cost Per Minute) Auditing: Calculate and verify a site's actual operating costs (Direct/Indirect Labor, Factory Overhead, General Expenses) relative to total working minutes-strictly keeping the Bill of Materials (BOM) outside of the CPM calculation. Efficiency Improvement: Partner with plant managers to identify and weaponize the 8 Industrial Wastages ($muda$: overproduction, defects, waiting, excess motion) to lift line efficiency and structurally drive down the manufacturing cost. Material Consumption Optimization: Audit marker efficiency, fabric consumption, and wastage percentages to ensure the company only pays for the exact raw materials utilized. 3. PPM Governance & Perimeter Controls Calculation vs. Negotiation: Enforce the operational golden rule: "Calculate a CPM, negotiate a PPM" (where the Price Per Minute equals CPM + negotiated factory profit). Perimeter Compliance: Define and audit the production field dedicated to the company's orders, ensuring the business adheres strictly to the principle of "I pay for what I use". 4. Risk Mitigation & Compliance (Anti-Corruption) Utilize objective manufacturing data and mathematical should-cost models as a structural shield against operational corruption and non-ethical behavior: Price Anomaly Detection: Run systematic compliance reviews on Open Costing sheets. Red-flag and investigate final product quotes accepted by Merchandisers that deviate from calculated industrial benchmarks. Forensic Cost Audits: Detect hidden margins or collusive pricing setups, such as artificially depressed factory efficiency rates, inflated material scrap-loss calculations, or unverified overhead markups and inconsistencies with agreed budgeted or planned volumes. Order Allocation Oversight: Monitor order-steering habits; flag instances where a Merchandiser actively bypasses standard digital costing parameters or demonstrates resistance to transferring volumes to cheaper, fully compliant, and highly efficient alternate factories. Degree: Bachelor's or Master's degree in Industrial Engineering, Textile Engineering, Manufacturing Systems, or Industrial Management Accounting. Experience: 10+ years of practical experience inside a manufacturing plant environment (ideal backgrounds include apparel/textile sourcing, footwear, or FMCG contract manufacturing), focusing heavily on Lean Manufacturing, work studies, and product costing. Industrial Engineering: Expert mastery of Standard Allowed Minute (SAM) engineering, line capacity mapping, and value stream analysis. Factory Finance: Clear understanding of industrial profit-and-loss (P&L) structures, activity-based costing, overhead allocations, and macro-economic factors (labor wage spikes, currency shifts). Data Competency: Advanced proficiency in data-driven costing systems, including GSD, spreadsheet modelling tools and vendor cost repositories. PLM Knowledge: Previous experience using a system like SAP, Centric or Trade Beyond. Pedagogical Posture: Strong communication and coaching skills; an authentic ability to break down complex manufacturing metrics for non-technical merchandising teams and diverse overseas suppliers. Objective Skepticism & Courage: A strict reliance on data, physical facts, and market metrics over personal relationships. Uncompromising ethical standards with the professional courage to challenge data and practices, escalate fraudulent behaviors or compliance red flags directly to internal audit teams. KIABI is an inclusive

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