Senior Engineer, Costing, Apparel

ABOUT YOUR ROLE:

The Senior Engineer, costing will be responsible for development costing operations, partner with sourcing development and brand stakeholders to drive best in class costing processes and seasonal development costing that support 100’s of millions of dollars’ worth in product cost across several VF brands, products and countries. This individual will support modernization and standardization of costing approaches utilizing consistent data-driven, automated and efficient processes in partnership with VF product sourcing teams and Vendors in country of manufacturing. This individual will bring a strong product and manufacturing background and will work closely with the product sourcing and development teams on designing to cost to achieve product cost savings for the organization. This individual will fully leverage “One VF” scale through the use of harmonized and scalable fact-based costing methodologies and will play an important role in the development sourcing organization with an extensive focus on development costing optimization.

YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES WILL INCLUDE (but not limited to):

1. Connectivity: Champion connectivity and seamless information sharing across vendors and cross-functional stakeholders within but not limited to the sourcing, brand, material, planning organization.
2. Operations: Manage seasonal development costing milestones and activities.
3. Profitability: Lead negotiation with vendor partners utilizing insights and fact-based costing methodologies as well as product engineering to design to higher profitability. Work closely with development sourcing on vendors allocations by providing FOB & Landed costing perspectives to support sourcing strategies.
4. Governance: Ensure costing process adherence by costing operations teams as well as vendors. Track and report on key metrics to ensure established processes are fully aligned with the performance, efficiency and transparency needs of the costing organization.
5. Team: Demonstrates strong leadership by ensuring the best standards of performance, collaboration and partnership across the product supply organization.
6. Process Improvements: Achieve improvements in costing activity productivity and efficiency through eliminating redundancies, automating repetitive tasks and optimizing processes for maximum value.
7. Project Leadership and participation: Lead and participate in various cross-functional initiatives and conduct specific analyses as needed producing deliverables in a diverse, fast paced environment through extensive collaboration across teams

WHAT WE WILL BE LOOKING FOR IN YOU:

Competency requirements:

• Consistently demonstrates an attitude of extreme accountability
• Proactively brings teams together to resolve issues (whether directly in scope of role or not), bring people along the journey and act as a connector between business areas – operating with an owner’s mindset
• Effectively partner with key internal / external stakeholders and team members, establish collective goal and partner with stakeholders to achieve it
• Demonstrated knowledge and genuine interest in further development in the following areas: development costing process/concepts + sourcing and allocation strategies
• Proven success in adopting change and transformation
• Experience in business process improvements desired
• Demonstrated leadership skills in a global matrix environment including strategic and innovative thinking
• Digital and analytical mindset with a passion for efficiency and process innovation
• Ability to work under pressure in fast paced environment with multiple on-going priorities.

Skill Requirements:

• Min 7 years of experience in industrial garment manufacturing/ buying office/ trading company required
• Ability to understand technical specifications, Bill of Materials, garment constructions
• Knowledge in fabric weaving, constructions, different dyeing processes will be a plus
• Knowledge in different embellishments, eg. Print techniques, embroidery, quilting will be a plus.
• Experience in sweater knits, accessories will be an advantage
• Ability to influence and drive consensus
• Experience in adopting change, business process redesign or process reengineering
• Strong negotiations, analytical and reasoning skills
• Eager to learn and adopt new methods, tools, technologies
• Strong in Microsoft offices – especially excel and powerpoint
• Good communication skills: diplomatic, open, good listener, direct, succinct
• Language Proficiency: Oral and written fluency in English