CTRM Subject Matter Expert — Role Profile
Metals & Minerals Trading, with Inventory & Warehouse Management expertise
Part-time advisory role supporting a Damco client modernization engagement · Remote
| CTRM Subject Matter Expert — Metals & Minerals Trading (Inventory & Warehouse focus) |
| Damco client engagement — legacy ERP/CTRM modernization (discovery & proof of concept) |
| Consulting / advisory assignment — part-time, non-dedicated |
| A few hours per week, drawn from a small agreed monthly bucket of hours (see §2) |
| ~8 weeks initially, with potential to extend into subsequent modernization phases |
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| Solution & Data (DB2) Architects, IBM i Architect, and the client''s business & IT stakeholders |
Damco is delivering a legacy modernization engagement for a client in the metals & minerals trading sector. The client operates a home-grown ERP/CTRM system on IBM i (AS/400), supporting a trading business with significant physical inventory and warehouse operations. The engagement assesses the system''s data architecture and validates a phased modernization approach through a working proof of concept.
We are looking for an industry SME with real operational experience in metals & minerals trading to validate data models, identify business-process gaps, and recommend improvements beyond current system capabilities. The role bridges the client''s trading and inventory operations and Damco''s data architects: our architects can document how the system works, but only a domain expert can confirm whether the data model reflects how the physical commodity trade and inventory actually behave — and where the legacy system holds the business back.
The kind of environment you''ll be working on
The client runs a home-grown, custom-built CTRM — not a packaged vendor platform. You''ll need to reason about trading concepts independent of any one tool and map them onto a bespoke model.
Typical issues you should recognize immediately from real trading operations: product master problems (the same product carried under multiple numbers, invoicing constraints), lot data with chemical composition encoded as symbols, hard field-length ceilings on contract numbering, risk and position reporting run through spreadsheet exports rather than the system, and no real-time hedging or currency visibility.
This is a metals & minerals trading business with heavy physical inventory and warehouse operations — trade-lifecycle depth and inventory/warehouse depth matter equally.
2. Nature of the role & time commitment
This is not a full-time or dedicated role. It is an advisory engagement designed to draw on senior domain expertise at the points where it matters most, without requiring day-to-day involvement.
Within the discovery and proof of concept, you own the business-validation thread:
Validate the canonical data model for the selected module (e.g., product / lot) against real metals-trading semantics — material grades, assays and quality specs, lot and heat identification, units of measure and conversions, and inventory states.
Map the physical and contractual trade lifecycle — sourcing/procurement, logistics and warehouse movements, weights and measures, title and risk transfer, hedging exposure, and settlement — onto the client''s modules to surface gaps.
Assess inventory & warehouse management — receipts, put-away, location and bin management, lot traceability, stock reconciliation, shrinkage/loss, and physical-vs-book positions — against current system capabilities.
4. Required domain expertise
Commodity trading & risk management (CTRM)
Hands-on experience with CTRM/ETRM systems for physical commodities — trade capture, position management, physical logistics, and settlement workflows.
Deep understanding of the physical commodity trade lifecycle: procurement, contracts, pricing (including formula/index pricing and premiums), logistics, invoicing, and settlement.
Understanding of trade documentation and title/risk transfer (Incoterms, warehouse receipts, bills of lading, certificates of analysis).
Metals & minerals trading (primary domain)
Direct operational experience in metals & minerals trading — base or precious metals, ferronon-ferrous, ferroalloys, concentrates, ores, or minerals.
Familiarity with metals-specific concepts: grades and assays, quality/spec tolerances, lot and heat tracking, provisional vs final pricing and weights, quotational periods, and treatment/refining charges (TC/RCs) where relevant.
Inventory & warehouse management (strong secondary focus)
Operational expertise in inventory and warehouse management for physical commodities — receipts, put-away, location/bin management, and dispatch.
Lot and batch traceability, serial/heat tracking, and units-of-measure handling (including conversions between traded, stored, and invoiced units).
Stock reconciliation, cycle counting, shrinkage and loss handling, and reconciliation of physical vs book positions.
5. CTRM platform & tooling experience
Because the client runs a custom-built CTRM, the ideal SME has seen how the leading commercial platforms model the same problems — that pattern knowledge is exactly what tells us whether a bespoke model is sound or missing something. Hands-on experience with one or more of the platforms below is expected; the metals/physical-focused tier is the most directly relevant.
Tier 1 — Metals, minerals & physical-commodity focused (most relevant)
Fendahl Fusion — CTRM purpose-built for metals and metal concentrates (base, refined, ferrous, non-ferrous, scrap).
Commodities Engineering (BALSAMO) — raw materials, concentrates, refined and scrap metals; trading, logistics and financing.
Tier 2 — Broad market-leading CTRM/ETRM platforms (valuable general pattern experience)
The commercial CTRM market is heavily consolidated under ION, which owns several of the historic top platforms. Experience with any of these demonstrates enterprise-grade trade-lifecycle and risk fluency:
ION Openlink (Endur), ION RightAngle, ION Allegro (Horizon), ION Aspect — the ION family of enterprise CTRMs.
Other notable platforms: Molecule, Quor, Agiblocks, SAP S/4HANA Commodity Management, and FIS commodity solutions.
How to read the tooling requirement
Tier 1 experience (metals/physical) is the strongest signal — it maps most directly onto grades, lots, concentrates, warehousing and provisional-pricing reality.
Tier 2 experience is valuable for enterprise trade-lifecycle and risk pattern knowledge, even if the commodity differs.
Names are indicative, not a checklist — depth of real trading-operations experience matters more than any single badge. An SME who has run operations on one strong metals platform and understands the concepts portably is a better fit than one who has only lightly touched several.
Custom / bespoke CTRM build experience (strong plus)
Highly relevant: experience designing, specifying, or heavily configuring a home-grown or bespoke CTRM — not just using a packaged product — since the client''s system is custom-built and the roadmap points toward a custom, module-by-module (strangler-pattern) rebuild.
6. Data & modernization fluency
You don''t need to be an engineer, but you must be able to work fluently with data architects:
Comfortable reviewing and critiquing data models — entities, attributes, relationships, and reference/master data — from a business-correctness standpoint.
7. Engagement & communication skills
8. Contribution to deliverables
Your work feeds directly into the engagement deliverables:
9. Ideal profile at a glance
The person we''re looking for
A metals & minerals trading professional — from a trading house, producer, or CTRM/commodity-software background — who has lived inside the physical trade and inventory operations, not just the front-office trading screen.
Has hands-on depth in at least one leading metals/physical CTRM (e.g., Eka/Quoreka, Fendahl Fusion, ION Triple Point, Brady) and understands the concepts portably — ideally with exposure to a custom or bespoke CTRM build.
Someone who has seen how grades, lots, weights, warehouse movements, and provisional pricing really behave, and can spot when a data model or process quietly assumes something the business doesn''t do.
Comfortable sitting between a trading floor and a data architect, and able to turn ''how the business actually works'' into requirements a modernization team can build against.
Available on a part-time advisory basis — a few hours a week — rather than seeking a full-time position.
Damco Solutions Inc. — role profile for a part-time CTRM subject matter expert supporting a client modernization engagement. Client details are confidential and will be shared with shortlisted candidates under NDA.
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