ROLE OVERVIEW
About the Opportunity
ROLE SUMMARY
The OT Manager owns the technology that runs the factory. The role is accountable for the architecture, delivery, availability, security and continuous improvement of the full operational technology landscape: MSD 365 F&O manufacturing and warehouse execution, MES, CAD/CAM and engineering data flow, machine connectivity and data acquisition, the integration layer, shopfloor infrastructure and production analytics. This is the single point of accountability where IT meets manufacturing. Success is measured in uptime, data integrity, on time delivery, yield, throughput and cost per unit, not in tickets closed
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
Strategy, architecture and roadmap
• Define and own the OT strategy, target architecture and multi-year roadmap aligned to production growth, new lines and automation plans.
• Act as design authority across MSD 365 F&O, MES, CAD/CAM, advanced warehouse management, machine layer and analytics, including layering aligned to ISA-95 and the Purdue model and rules on where each business rule lives.
• Evaluate and select technologies and partners with quantified business cases covering labour, yield, scrap, throughput, inventory and delivery reliability.
• Drive the smart factory agenda pragmatically: connectivity coverage, paperless shopfloor, real time visibility, predictive maintenance and analytics, sequenced by value and readiness. Specify OT, connectivity, network and licensing requirements for new machines and factory expansion before procurement is committed.
Delivery and programme leadership
• Lead OT projects end to end: scope, design, plan, budget, resourcing, risk, testing, training, cutover and hypercare. Own go-live readiness and cutover decisions.
• Govern test quality across unit, integration, end to end, performance and UAT, with traceability from requirement to sign-off.
• Chair change advisory for production systems, sequencing releases around production windows with rollback readiness enforced. Manage interdependencies with the MSD 365 F&O programme, corporate IT, engineering and OEM commissioning schedules.
Process ownership across functions
• Govern the production order process, advanced manufacturing processes, WIP control, advanced warehouse management, outbound and dispatch, and the design to machine thread as integrated flows rather than departmental silos.
• Partner with Production, Planning, Design, Quality, Warehouse, Maintenance, Procurement, Finance and Projects to ensure system logic reflects and improves the real process.
• Govern manufacturing master and reference data: ownership, approval workflow, quality metrics and cleansing programmes. Enforce standards for barcode and labelling, naming conventions, program and file management, machine tag lists and configuration baselines.
• Lead improvement initiatives to remove manual entry and shadow systems, raise WIP and inventory accuracy and shorten order to dispatch lead time.
Integration and data ownership (summary)
• Own the integration touch point inventory across CAD/CAM, MSD 365 F&O, MES, nesting and machine layer, RF and advanced warehouse management, label printing, transport and 3PL, maintenance system and Power BI. Approve every new interface design.
• Set integration standards: mapping documentation, idempotency and sequencing, retry and dead letter handling, reconciliation source versus target, alerting with a named owner, and runbook coverage before go-live. Own the middleware and data platform choice and the monitoring estate.
• Own the production KPI definition library and single source of truth for OEE, downtime Pareto, cycle time, throughput, first pass yield, scrap and rework, material yield, WIP aging, inventory accuracy, picking productivity and on time in full dispatch.
Operations, availability and service management
• Define criticality tiers, SLAs and OLAs, multi-shift support coverage, escalation matrices and on-call rotation. Establish proactive monitoring so failures reach a human before production stops.
• Own incident, problem and major incident management to permanent fix, and reduce repeat incidents.
• Own business continuity and disaster recovery for OT, including backup and tested restore of applications, databases, machine programs and controller configurations, plus documented manual fallback so the factory can keep producing during an outage.
• Manage lifecycle and obsolescence of shopfloor hardware, terminals, scanners, printers and software versions.
OT security, compliance and risk
• Own OT cybersecurity with corporate Information Security, aligned to IEC 62443 and NIST CSF: asset inventory, segmentation and zoning, firewall governance, secure vendor remote access, privileged access management, hardening baselines and a workable industrial patch strategy.
• Maintain the OT asset and risk register, run assessments and remediation plans, conduct recovery exercises, and ensure audit readiness for internal audit, ISO 9001, 14001 and 45001, licensing, data retention and traceability evidence.
Team, vendor and budget management
• Build, lead and develop the OT team with defined role charters, skill matrices and career paths. Ensure knowledge transfer so no system depends on one individual.
• Own the factory training and adoption programme including super-user networks and refresher cycles.
• Own vendor relationships with machine OEMs, MES, CAD/CAM and ERP partners and integrators. Lead RFP, technical evaluation, statements of work, acceptance criteria and SLA enforcement.
• Own the OT budget across OPEX and CAPEX, forecasting, cost control, total cost of ownership and benefit realization.
QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE
Mandatory
• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, IT, Industrial or Automation Engineering. Postgraduate qualification or MBA an advantage.
• 10+ years in manufacturing IT, OT or digital manufacturing, including 3+ years leading a team and owning delivery of production critical systems.
• Proven end to end ownership of at least one MES or shopfloor digitalization implementation in a discrete or engineer to order environment, from design through go-live to steady state.
• Strong command of the production order process, advanced manufacturing processes, WIP control, advanced warehouse management and outbound and dispatch in an ERP context, with MSD 365 F&O strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated delivery of machine connectivity and shopfloor data acquisition across multiple machine types and vendors, including industrial protocols and edge or gateway architectures.
• Solid integration architecture experience across ERP, MES, CAD/CAM and warehouse systems, including error handling and reconciliation design.
• Practical OT network and security knowledge, plus backup and disaster recovery for OT assets.
• Demonstrated vendor management, budget ownership and senior stakeholder management. Excellent English communication with both shopfloor supervisors and leadership.
Preferred
• Woodworking, furniture, panel processing or engineer to order interiors background, with HOMAG, Biesse, SCM or IMA and CAD+T or imos exposure. High mix, project driven manufacturing with unit wise kitting, phased delivery and site installation dependencies.
• Greenfield or major factory expansion experience. Exposure to PLM, APS, CMMS or EAM, quality management systems and transport platforms. Azure integration and data services, Power BI at scale.
• Certifications: PMP or PRINCE2, ITIL, Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, IEC 62443 or GICSP, Lean Six Sigma, TOGAF. GCC or UAE manufacturing experience.
LEADERSHIP COMPETENCIES
Accountable owner who treats factory systems as their own problem at any hour. Systems thinker who optimizes the whole flow from design release to installed product. Credible bridge, trusted by Operations as a partner and by IT as a technologist. Pragmatic prioritizer who ships working improvements rather than perfect plans. People builder who removes single points of failure. Firm with vendors, fair with users. Calm and communicative during production impacting incidents. Honest with data, including the uncomfortable numbers.
INDICATIVE KPIS
System uptime and machine connectivity coverage. Integration success rate and ageing of unresolved errors. MTTR and repeat incident rate. Master data, inventory and WIP accuracy. Project delivery on time and on budget with post-hypercare stability. Contribution to OEE, downtime, scrap and yield, on time in full dispatch and order to dispatch lead time. Adoption and reduction of manual workarounds. OT security posture and restore test success. Team retention and skills matrix coverage.