Director, Modern Manufacturing IT Capabilities

Caterpillar•Irving, TX

16d•Onsite

About The Position

The Director of Modern Manufacturing IT Capabilities is a global platform owner responsible for architecting, delivering, and scaling the digital systems that power world class manufacturing. This leader defines and executes the enterprise strategy for modern ERP (SAP S/4HANA + QAD), MES, plant systems, and integration platforms, transforming a complex, heterogeneous legacy landscape into a modern digital foundation that enables high precision, high velocity operations at global scale. This role is accountable for building and institutionalizing deep ERP and manufacturing systems expertise across the enterprise, ensuring capabilities are not only deployed but embedded as durable, repeatable, globally consistent competencies. You will operate as a principal builder, shaping digital factories, unifying fragmented systems, simplifying architecture, and delivering solutions that directly elevate safety, quality, throughput, sustainability, and cost competitiveness.

Requirements

Business Acumen: Knowledge of business concepts, tools, and processes that are needed for making sound decisions in the context of the company's business; ability to apply this knowledge appropriately to diverse situations
Decision Making and Critical Thinking: Knowledge of the decision-making process and associated tools and techniques; ability to accurately analyze situations and reach productive decisions based on informed judgment
Influencing: Knowledge of effective influencing tactics and strategies; ability to impact decisions within and outside own organization
Continuous Transformation: Knowledge of evolving the business to remain competitive; ability to understand, adapt oneself to, respond to and proactively seek changes and innovation in the business environment to improve the competitive advantage of an organization
Organizational Leadership: Knowledge of leadership concepts and ability to use strategies and skills to enlist others in setting, embracing and achieving objectives
Talent Management: Knowledge of the critical competencies required to achieve intended results; ability to generate consistent approaches for hiring, selection, retaining and leveraging talent across the organization
Matrix Management: Understanding of the importance of being able to leverage external resources when required and ability to build and use effective working relationships within own department and across department, functional, and geographic reporting lines
IT Systems Management: Knowledge of Information Technology (IT) systems; ability to utilize a variety of system tools, guarantee service availability, and ensure optimal IT system performance

Responsibilities

Global Manufacturing Platform Strategy Own the multiyear technical strategy and capability roadmap for ERP, MES, plant systems, and enterprise grade integration, ensuring scalability, standardization, and operational resilience
Accelerate the transition from legacy and highly customized systems to modern, harmonized platforms with global patterns, reusable assets, and cloud ready architectures
Tie platform evolution directly to measurable business outcomes: OEE, first pass yield, cost per unit, lead time, sustainability measures, and supply chain resilience
ERP Depth, Expertise Building & Enterprise Institutionalization Build ERP capability - deep functional and technical expertise across Plan to Produce, manufacturing engineering, scheduling, execution, quality, maintenance, and inventory
Create global capability models: standards, development pathways, certification, playbooks, deployment kits, and architectural guardrails
Lead enterprise enablement for SAP S/4HANA and QAD - shifting the culture from “vendor dependent” to “enterprise expert”
MES and Plant Systems Modernization Define and execute the global MES strategy - workflow orchestration, traceability, digital operator experience, real time manufacturing insights, automated quality, and digital maintenance
Deliver platform standards for OT/IT convergence, IIoT, PLC and SCADA integration, equipment connectivity, and digital work instructions
Advance plant systems modernization through secure, resilient, scalable, and data rich architectures
Enterprise Integration & Connected Manufacturing Partner to build an end-to-end integration strategy across ERP, MES, plant systems, OT/PLC, IIoT, cloud analytics, and enterprise platforms
Drive implementation of global integration patterns (APIs, event driven architectures, data streams) ensuring synchronized and intelligent factory operations
Partner with Architecture, Cybersecurity, Data, and Product Engineering to ensure solutions reflect world class design and enterprise compliance
Operational Excellence & Mission Critical Reliability Ensure always on reliability of all manufacturing digital platforms supporting 24/7 global operations
Instill operational rigor - proactive stability engineering, observability, automation, zero defect releases, and lifecycle management
Reduce technical debt, eliminate legacy fragmentation, modernize interfaces, and strengthen cyber resilience across plant technology stacks
Global Deployment Leadership Lead multi region ERP/MES deployments with global template governance, end to end change management, and high velocity execution
Apply Go See Act and structured operational diagnostics to identify capability gaps and accelerate plant readiness
Balance enterprise standardization with local operational nuance, ensuring adoption at scale
People Leadership & Organizational Capability Building Lead global, multi sourced, high performing teams across architecture, operations, and manufacturing IT
Hire, develop, and retain top digital manufacturing talent; build succession pipelines for critical roles
Foster a culture of innovation, technical excellence, accountability, design simplicity, and enterprise first decision making