1. Department Purpose
The Non-Ferrous Metal Buying Team is responsible for sourcing, evaluating, negotiating, and purchasing recyclable non-ferrous metals at competitive prices while maintaining quality, compliance, supply continuity, and profitability. Typical materials include copper, aluminium, brass, bronze, zinc, lead, nickel alloys, insulated wires, radiators, motors, cables, and other metal-bearing scrap.
2. Suggested Team Structure
Position: Manager – Metal Procurement
Primary Responsibility: Procurement strategy, margins, supplier network, approvals, and team performance
Senior Buyer: High-value supplier accounts, pricing, negotiations, and volume planning
Buyer/Procurement Executive: Daily sourcing, quotations, supplier visits, and purchase closure
Yard/Material Inspector: Material identification, grading, weighing, contamination checks, and quality reports
Procurement Coordinator: Purchase orders, documentation, logistics coordination, MIS, and payment follow-up
Commercial/Market Analyst: Market prices, landed cost, competitor rates, and profitability analysis
3. Job Description: Buyer – Non-Ferrous Metals
Job title: Buyer / Procurement Executive – Non-Ferrous Metals
Department: Procurement / Commercial
Reports to: Procurement Manager or Business Head
Location: Recycling plant, collection yard, or corporate office
Experience: Approximately 2–7 years in scrap buying, metal trading, recycling, foundry, manufacturing procurement, or commodity sourcing
Education: Graduate degree; technical or commercial qualification preferred
Travel: Regular travel to suppliers, industrial units, dismantlers, stockyards, and collection points
3.1 Supplier Development and Sourcing
• Identify and onboard suppliers of copper, aluminium, brass, zinc, lead, cables, motors, radiators, alloys, and other recyclable metal materials.
• Develop relationships with manufacturers, engineering companies, auto-component units, electrical and cable companies, demolition contractors.
• Maintain a supplier database with material category, location, monthly volume, payment terms, credit history, and compliance status.
• Generate recurring supply from existing vendors and reduce dependence on a limited number of suppliers.
• Conduct supplier visits and understand generation, segregation, storage, and dispatch processes.
3.2 Material Inspection and Grading
• Inspect incoming material and verify declared grade, quantity, and condition.
• Identify mixed, contaminated, insulated, oxidised, wet, oil-contaminated, or non-conforming material.
• Check recovery potential for complex or mixed scrap before finalising the purchase price.
• Coordinate with yard, quality, laboratory, and production teams for sampling and recovery assessment.
• Classify material correctly as high-grade, commercial-grade, mixed, or low-recovery material.
3.3 Pricing and Negotiation
• Monitor market prices for copper, aluminium, brass, zinc, and other relevant commodities.
• Calculate purchase prices after considering recovery, processing cost, freight, taxes, handling loss, rejection risk, and expected selling price.
• Negotiate rates, quantity, quality tolerances, payment terms, loading conditions, and delivery schedules.
• Purchase material within approved rate and margin guidelines.
• Escalate exceptional or high-value transactions for management approval.
• Evaluate recoverable metal value and net landed cost rather than relying only on gross weight.
3.4 Purchase Execution
• Prepare quotations, purchase orders, rate confirmations, and supplier agreements.
• Coordinate vehicle placement, loading, route planning, weighment, and delivery to the plant or yard.
• Verify weighbridge slips, invoices, e-way bills, tax documents, and dispatch records.
• Ensure that no vehicle is dispatched without approved commercial terms and required documentation.
• Coordinate with accounts for payment processing and resolve quantity, quality, or deduction disputes.
3.5 Quality and Commercial Control
• Compare supplier declaration with actual receipt quality.
• Record shortages, excess moisture, contamination, attachments, and grade deviations.
• Implement transparent rejection and deduction rules.
• Track supplier-wise rejection, recovery, material loss, and claim history.
• Support supplier audits and performance reviews.
• Prevent duplicate billing, unauthorised purchases, fictitious suppliers, and rate manipulation.
3.6 Compliance and Responsible Sourcing
• Maintain supplier KYC, GST, PAN, bank details, ownership documents, and applicable registrations.
• Verify whether the supplier is authorised or legally eligible to deal in the relevant material.
• Ensure procurement complies with applicable environmental, waste-management, transport, tax, and company policies.
• For e-waste, battery waste, end-of-life vehicles, or metal-bearing waste, coordinate with compliance to confirm applicable authorisations and documentation.
• Do not purchase material of suspicious origin, stolen infrastructure, unidentified cables, or material without adequate ownership and source documents.
3.7 Reporting and Market Intelligence
• Submit daily purchase, rate, supplier, stock, and dispatch reports.
• Maintain a live purchase pipeline showing enquiries, quotations, negotiations, expected volumes, and closures.
• Provide weekly updates on market movement, supplier behaviour, competitor rates, and supply risks.
• Share volume and purchase-cost forecasts with production and sales teams.
• Maintain accurate records in Excel, ERP, or CRM/procurement software.
6. Daily Responsibilities
• Review market rates and internal buying limits.
• Check pending supplier enquiries and expected arrivals.
• Contact existing and prospective suppliers.
• Obtain photographs, videos, grade details, quantity, and location for new material.
• Prepare cost and recovery calculations.
• Negotiate and close approved purchases.
• Coordinate vehicle placement and loading.
• Verify weighment and material receipt.
• Record quality differences, deductions, and supplier disputes.
• Update the purchase tracker and submit the daily report.
7. Skills and Competencies
• Knowledge of non-ferrous scrap grades and metal identification.
• Understanding of recovery, yield, contamination, moisture, and processing losses.
• Strong negotiation and supplier relationship-management skills.
• Ability to calculate landed cost and purchase profitability.
• Familiarity with commodity-price movements and regional scrap markets.
• Knowledge of GST, e-way bills, weighment, invoices, and procurement documentation.
• Ability to use Excel, ERP, procurement software, and reporting dashboards.
• Strong communication, follow-up, field-verification, and problem-solving skills.
• High integrity in supplier selection, pricing, quality assessment, and payment coordination.
8. Sample Performance Targets
• Achieve at least 95% of the approved monthly procurement-volume target.
• Maintain purchases within approved price and margin limits.
• Keep quality-related deductions or rejection below the approved threshold.
• Add a defined number of qualified suppliers every month.
• Maintain a high repeat-supplier ratio for strategic materials.
• Complete supplier KYC and purchase documentation before material dispatch.
• Ensure timely vehicle placement and delivery for committed purchases.
• Submit daily procurement MIS and monthly supplier-performance reports on schedule.
• Resolve quality, quantity, and payment disputes within the defined turnaround time.
• Avoid unauthorised, undocumented, or suspicious material procurement.
