Business Architect Manufacturing & Quality

Role Purpose

The Business Architect – Manufacturing & Quality is accountable for defining and evolving the target business capability architecture for Manufacturing and Quality within the end‑to‑end Supply Chain.

While functionally aligned to Manufacturing and Quality, this role operates horizontally across Plan, Source, Deliver, and Enterprise functions, ensuring that capabilities, data, and digital investments work together to deliver scalable, compliant, and resilient outcomes.

The role acts as a capability steward and architectural integrator, translating business strategy into coherent capability roadmaps and guiding cross‑functional initiatives through architecture governance.

Key Responsibilities:

Capability Architecture Ownership (Manufacturing & Quality)

• Define, maintain, and evolve the L1–L3 business capability architecture for Manufacturing and Quality, independent of systems or organizational structure.
• Ensure capability definitions are stable, outcome‑oriented, and reusable across regions and products.
• Own capability dependencies and interfaces with adjacent domains (Plan, Source, Deliver, Finance).

Cross‑Functional & Value Stream Architecture

• Actively operate across end‑to‑end value streams (e.g., Sense & Shape Demand, Promise to Customer, Manufacture & Release etc), identifying cross‑functional constraints and architectural trade‑offs.
• Partner with Business Product Owners to ensure initiatives optimize value flow, not local functional efficiency.
• Translate value‑stream performance gaps into capability‑level interventions.

Architecture Governance & ARB Leadership

• Serve as the single accountable Business Architect for Manufacturing & Quality initiatives entering architecture governance forums.
• Clearly articulate architectural impacts, options, and trade‑offs to senior stakeholders and ARB members.
• Lead architecture assessments, ensuring alignment to:
• Enterprise capability standards
• Data and integration principles
• Target‑state ecosystem architecture

Digital & Data Alignment

• Connect Manufacturing and Quality ways of working to digital, data, and AI capabilities, ensuring solutions are compliant, scalable, and explainable.
• Partner closely with Technology, Information, and DS/AI Architects to align on:
• Integration and data flows
• Data ownership and semantics
• Innovation‑to‑scale pathways

Strategic Influence & Stakeholder Engagement

• Act as a trusted advisor to Manufacturing and Quality leaders on capability maturity, investment prioritization, and architectural direction.
• Influence across global, regional, and enterprise teams.
• Maintain awareness of external trends and emerging technologies relevant to Manufacturing and Quality ecosystems.

Qualifications

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree (Master’s preferred).

Required Skills & Expertise

Business Architecture

• Deep expertise in capability modeling (L1–L3) and business architecture frameworks.
• Clear understanding of the distinction between capabilities, processes, and systems.
• Experience defining target‑state architectures and capability roadmaps.

Cross‑Functional & Systems Thinking

• Strong systems‑thinking mindset with the ability to reason across Plan, Source, Make, Deliver, and Quality domains.
• Proven ability to work horizontally and resolve trade‑offs across functional boundaries.

Manufacturing & Quality Domain Knowledge

• Strong understanding of Manufacturing and Quality processes and operating environments, including regulated and OT‑adjacent contexts.
• Ability to abstract domain complexity into clear architectural constructs.

Communication & Influence

• Excellent facilitation and storytelling skills; able to explain complex architecture concepts in business language.
• Comfortable engaging senior leaders and governance bodies.

What Success Looks Like

• Manufacturing & Quality capabilities are clearly defined, governed, and reusable.
• Cross‑functional initiatives align to a coherent target architecture rather than fragmented solutions.
• Architecture governance decisions are faster, clearer, and value‑led.
• Digital and data investments demonstrably improve end‑to‑end supply chain outcomes.

~10+ years of experience in Supply Chain, Manufacturing, or Quality within a regulated industry.

Demonstrated experience operating in large, complex, global programs with multiple dependencies.

Hybrid Work