Primary responsibilities include
Business Partnership
Serve as the primary IT advisor to Manufacturing, Quality, Warehousing, Logistics, and Automation business leaders.
Develop trusted relationships with operational stakeholders.
Translate business objectives into technology roadmaps and solution architectures.
Facilitate strategic planning for 3–5-year technology initiatives.
People Manager
Manage the assigned Solution Architects and their teams to foster cross domain collaboration, ensure alignment on end-to-end process flows, data models and integration points rather than optimizing only within their silos.
Prioritize Skills Development and knowledge sharing across teams so team members stay current on both their specialized domains and the broader enterprise architecture, integration, and cloud/platform capabilities.
Align individual and team objectives with measurable business outcomes and regularly review solution roadmaps against those outcomes.
Complete all administrative tasks associated with people management with consistency and mindfulness.
Solution Architecture
Lead architecture and design for manufacturing applications and integrations.
Ensure solutions are scalable, resilient, secure, and maintainable.
Develop and maintain architecture standards and reference models.
Evaluate new technologies and recommend adoption where appropriate.
Manufacturing Systems
Provide technical leadership for systems including
Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES)
Quality Management Systems
Material Handling Automation
Industrial data historians
Shop floor data collection
Equipment integrations
Operational reporting and analytics
Project Leadership
Support project teams during planning, design, implementation, and deployment.
Review low level solution designs for compliance with enterprise architecture standards.
Identify technical risks and mitigation strategies.
Ensure continuity and successful transition across Plan, Build, Run.
Governance
Establish architecture governance for manufacturing technology.
Participate in technology standards and design reviews.
Maintain documentation, diagrams, and solution roadmaps.
Vendor Management
Work with software vendors, systems integrators, and equipment suppliers.
Participate in software selection and proof-of-concept evaluations.
Review Statements of Work and technical deliverables.
Build depth via staff augmentation in key business areas.
Operational Excellence
Improve system reliability, availability, and performance.
Support business continuity and disaster recovery planning.
Identify opportunities to reduce technical debt.
Mentoring
Mentor solution architects, analysts, and solution engineers.
Share knowledge across IT teams.
Encourage architectural best practices and continuous learning.
The ideal candidate should possess the following
Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, or related field.
10+ years of experience leading and implementing enterprise manufacturing solutions.
Experience working directly with manufacturing operations.
Strong solution architecture and systems integration experience.
Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional initiatives.
Travel across all First Quality North American sites is required and is anticipated to be 40-50%
Preferred Experience
Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) and Data historians
Quality Management Systems
Industrial Automation
SAP integration
Cloud platforms (Azure preferred)
Knowledge of Integration Capabilities
Operational Technology (OT)
Enterprise architecture frameworks
What We Offer You
We believe that by continuously improving the quality of our benefits, we can help to raise the quality of life for our team members and their families. At First Quality you will receive:
Competitive base salary and bonus opportunities
Paid time off (three-week minimum)
Medical, dental and vision starting day one
401(k) with employer match
Paid parental leave
Child and family care assistance (dependent care FSA with employer match up to $3750)
Bundle of joy benefit (years’ worth of free diapers to all team members with a new baby)
Tuition assistance
Wellness program with savings of up to $4,000 per year on insurance premiums
...and more!
First Quality is committed to protecting information under the care of First Quality Enterprises commensurate with leading industry standards and applicable regulations. As such, First Quality provides at least annual training regarding data privacy and security to employees who, as a result of their role specifications, may come in to contact with sensitive data.
First Quality is an Equal Opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, gender identification, or protected Veteran status.
