Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Expeditor

🎯 Role Definition

The Expeditor is a hands-on supply chain and procurement professional responsible for ensuring timely delivery of materials, components, and services critical to production and project schedules. The Expeditor closely monitors purchase orders, vendor performance, freight, and inventory levels to minimize lead-time risk, prevent production downtime, and maintain strong supplier relationships. This role is essential for fast-paced manufacturing, construction, aerospace, electronics, and any environment where on-time supply of parts determines operational success.

Primary keywords: Expeditor, procurement expeditor, materials expeditor, supplier expediting, production support, inventory control, lead time management, vendor coordination, PO follow-up, ERP/SAP.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Purchasing Coordinator
Materials Coordinator / Materials Planner
Logistics Coordinator
Production Planner
Procurement Assistant

Advancement To:

Senior Expeditor / Lead Expeditor
Procurement Analyst / Buyer
Supply Chain Planner / Materials Manager
Supplier Quality Engineer / Supplier Development Manager
Operations or Supply Chain Manager

Lateral Moves:

Logistics or Freight Coordinator
Inventory Analyst
Production Scheduler
Vendor Management Specialist

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Monitor and manage open purchase orders (POs) from issuance to delivery: proactively follow up with suppliers, confirm ship dates, expedite late orders, and update stakeholders on changes to projected delivery dates to avoid production delays.
Maintain accurate order status records in ERP systems (e.g., SAP, Oracle, NetSuite) and ensure PO data (lead times, promised dates, quantities, incoterms) is current for planning and procurement teams.
Act as the primary point of contact with vendors regarding order status, capacity constraints, manufacturing delays, and corrective actions; escalate supplier performance issues to procurement managers and implement recovery plans.
Coordinate domestic and international shipments with carriers and freight forwarders, clarify routing and lead-time expectations, track in-transit shipments, and expedite where needed to meet critical milestones.
Prioritize and manage expediting activities based on production criticality, part scarcity, customer commitments, and cost-to-expedite analyses; apply risk-based decision-making to focus resources on high-impact items.
Develop, maintain, and communicate a prioritized list of critical-long lead items and “at-risk” POs to production, planning, and procurement stakeholders; produce daily/weekly reports and dashboards to support decision-making.
Conduct root cause analysis for recurring late deliveries or shortages; work cross-functionally with procurement, engineering, quality, and suppliers to implement corrective and preventive actions (CAPA) to reduce repeat issues.
Negotiate with suppliers and carriers for improved lead times, partial shipments, expedited freight terms, and special handling to mitigate schedule interruptions while controlling cost impacts.
Manage vendor performance metrics including On-Time Delivery (OTD), lead-time variance, fill rate, and quality issues; develop improvement plans and follow through on corrective actions.
Schedule and coordinate split shipments, partial shipments, and drop shipments when necessary to meet production needs without incurring unnecessary inventory carrying costs.
Collaborate with production planning and shop floor teams to align material arrivals with production schedules, Kanban signals, and just-in-time (JIT) replenishment practices to minimize WIP and finished goods disruption.
Validate shipping documentation, compliance paperwork, certificates of conformance (CoC), export/import documentation, and packing lists to ensure timely customs clearance and reduce hold-ups at borders.
Execute expedited purchase order creation and change orders for emergency buys, ensuring accurate coding, approvals, and documentation for auditability and financial reconciliation.
Manage and communicate exceptions, backorders, and allocation decisions for constrained materials, ensuring business priorities and customer commitments are reflected in distribution and production plans.
Implement and maintain supplier communication cadences—status calls, email templates, and supplier portals—to standardize expectations and reduce variability in status reporting.
Support periodic physical inventory counts and cycle counts for high-priority or safety-stocked items to validate stock positions and resolve discrepancies that could impact production.
Review supplier capacity and forecast alignment; provide suppliers with short-term look-ahead schedules and demand visibility to encourage proactive production and reduce expedite needs.
Liaise with Quality Assurance for disposition of rejected material, returns, and rework timelines; ensure replacement parts are prioritized and tracked until receipt and proper disposition.
Use data analytics and reporting tools (Excel, Power BI, Tableau) to analyze lead-time trends, identify bottlenecks, and recommend continuous improvement initiatives to procurement and operations leadership.
Maintain thorough documentation for expediting activities including correspondence, shipment confirmations, supplier commitments, and corrective action records to support audits and supplier scorecards.
Support the implementation of supplier development programs, alternate sourcing strategies, and dual-sourcing plans to reduce single-source risk and improve supply resilience.
Coordinate with finance and accounts payable to ensure timely invoicing and resolution of supplier disputes that could affect release or shipment of priority orders.
Facilitate cross-functional daily stand-ups or war-room sessions during critical supply disruptions, acting as the logistics/expediting subject matter expert to align actions and communicate status to leadership.
Train and mentor junior buyers or expediting personnel on best practices for PO follow-up, escalation procedures, ERP transaction entry, and stakeholder communication.

Secondary Functions

Maintain and update standardized expediting templates, KPI dashboards, and supplier status reports to improve transparency across procurement, production, and leadership teams.
Participate in continuous improvement (Kaizen, Lean) initiatives focused on reducing lead times, paperwork, resolution time for supplier issues, and the frequency of emergency buys.
Support ad-hoc supplier audits and on-site visits to validate production capability, lead-time assumptions, and corrective action implementation.
Contribute to supplier risk assessments and business continuity planning by providing historical expediting data and insights on supplier vulnerabilities.
Collaborate with the procurement team to refine sourcing strategies, reorder point calculations, safety stock policies, and material requirement planning parameters.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Advanced proficiency in ERP systems (SAP MM, Oracle EBS, NetSuite, JD Edwards) for PO management, receipt transactions, and supplier communication.
Strong experience with MRP/DRP logic and production planning processes to interpret demand signals and prioritize expediting actions.
Expert-level Microsoft Excel skills (VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, pivot tables, macros) for tracking orders, creating reports, and analyzing lead-time trends.
Familiarity with transportation and freight concepts including Incoterms, air/sea/ground lead times, customs documentation, and freight-forwarder coordination.
Experience using analytics and visualization tools (Power BI, Tableau, Looker) to produce expediting dashboards and supplier performance reports.
Knowledge of procurement and purchasing processes, including PO creation, change orders, supplier acknowledgments, and invoice reconciliation.
Understanding of supplier quality systems, certificates of conformity, nonconformance reporting, and material disposition processes.
Basic knowledge of Lean manufacturing, JIT/Kanban systems, and continuous improvement methodologies to support inventory and flow optimization.
Ability to use supplier portals, electronic data interchange (EDI), and online shipment tracking systems to streamline communications and status updates.
Familiarity with import/export compliance, customs clearance processes, and required trade documentation for international shipments.
Experience with contract and service purchase order terms, lead time clauses, and escalation clauses to enforce supplier commitments.

Soft Skills

Exceptional verbal and written communication skills for clear, professional supplier and internal stakeholder interactions.
Strong negotiation skills to obtain realistic delivery commitments and favorable expedited shipping terms without excessive cost.
Excellent problem-solving and root cause analysis capabilities to diagnose late deliveries and execute durable corrective actions.
High sense of urgency and prioritization to manage multiple critical orders simultaneously while maintaining attention to detail.
Resilience and adaptability to operate effectively in high-pressure environments with shifting production requirements.
Collaborative team-player mentality to work cross-functionally with procurement, production, quality, and logistics teams.
Time management and organizational skills to maintain up-to-date status, follow-up cadence, and escalation logs.
Influencing and stakeholder management skills to coordinate actions across departments and with senior leadership.
Analytical mindset with the ability to synthesize data into actionable insights and recommendations.
Customer-focused orientation to align expediting efforts with internal and external customer delivery expectations.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

High school diploma or GED.

Preferred Education:

Associate degree or Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain Management, Logistics, Business Administration, Industrial Engineering, or related field.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Supply Chain Management
Logistics and Transportation
Business Administration
Industrial Engineering
Operations Management
Procurement / Purchasing

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

2 to 7 years of related experience in expediting, purchasing, materials coordination, or production scheduling.

Preferred:

3+ years of direct expeditor or materials expediting experience in manufacturing, aerospace, electronics, automotive, construction, or heavy industry.
Proven experience using ERP systems (SAP/Oracle) and advanced Excel; background coordinating international shipments and multi-vendor supplier networks.
Demonstrated track record of reducing lead-time variability, improving supplier on-time delivery, and preventing production downtime through proactive expediting.

Keywords: Expeditor, supplier expediting, purchase order follow-up, procurement, supply chain, materials management, lead time reduction, vendor management, production support, ERP, SAP, logistics, inventory control, JIT, Kanban, freight coordination, supplier performance.