Karan Patil, CSCP

Serve as the on-site procurement point of contact for two active manufacturing regions — Michigan and North Carolina — ensuring supply readiness, material availability, and uninterrupted production schedules across both sites. Act as the dependable first line of escalation when supplier issues threaten site operations. Own end-to-end logistics and delivery tracking for critical, high-spend components sourced from overseas suppliers — managing PO lifecycle from order placement through customs clearance, inbound freight, and site receipt. Proactively flagged a 6-week lead time risk on a key imported fabricated assembly, coordinated an air freight escalation with the supplier, and prevented a line stoppage that would have impacted 3 weeks of scheduled production. Drive change order management as the direct liaison between Caterpillar engineering teams and external suppliers — translating technical scope changes into commercial impacts, negotiating revised pricing and lead times, and routing approvals cross-functionally through Legal, Finance, and Operations. Managed 12+ change orders in a single quarter without a single schedule slip. Ensure contract and compliance adherence across the supplier base — tracking insurance certificates, terms and conditions, and supplier scorecards, and escalating non-compliance before it becomes a program risk. Implemented a compliance tracker that reduced open compliance gaps by 40% within 90 days. Led RFx sourcing and supplier negotiations for critical and high-spend categories, delivering $3.5M+ in annualized cost savings while maintaining quality and delivery performance across both regions. Built procurement visibility dashboards in SAP and Power BI tracking PO cycle time, supplier OTD, and inbound logistics status — giving site managers and program leads a real-time view of supply health and improving delivery reliability by 18%.

Supported procurement execution and supply planning for critical hardware components across Microsoft's CSCP data center infrastructure programs — managing supply of high-spend server, networking, and infrastructure equipment through full PO lifecycle tracking and backlog risk management. Identified a recurring supply bottleneck caused by a single-source component supplier with constrained capacity during peak deployment cycles. Partnered with sourcing and engineering teams to qualify an alternate supplier, reducing dependency risk and improving material availability by 15% across active deployment quarters. Consolidated fragmented procurement and planning data from multiple systems into a unified PO tracking dashboard — giving cross-functional stakeholders a single source of truth for supply availability, delivery status, and deployment readiness. Reduced escalation response time by 30% as a result. Collaborated directly with engineering and NPI teams on hardware component readiness for data center commissioning — aligning supplier capacity, lead times, and delivery windows to protect on-time commissioning milestones for large-scale infrastructure buildouts. Drove cross-functional planning reviews with sourcing, operations, and engineering stakeholders — presenting supply risk analysis and recommending mitigation strategies that resolved actual bottlenecks before they impacted deployment schedules.

Managed supplier delivery tracking and PO follow-ups across active production programs, serving as a control tower lead for inbound material status and escalation resolution. Identified and escalated at-risk deliveries before they hit the line — coordinating directly with suppliers to expedite shipments and reschedule POs, reducing production material shortages by 25%.

Owned end-to-end supply chain operations for an Indian manufacturing facility — managing inventory, supplier relationships, and inbound material flow to support production schedules. Led cross-functional process improvement initiatives using Lean principles, reducing inventory carrying costs and improving on-time delivery from domestic suppliers across two product lines.