Principal Supply Chain Process Architect

Nextpower•Arizona - Remote - USA, AZ

2d•Remote

About The Position

Nextpower is building a scalable supply chain management system to improve customer reliability, simplify and standardize ways of working, and strengthen process- and data-driven decision making while staying agile through major system changes (e.g., ERP). The Principal Process Architect designs the end-to-end operating architecture for supply chain – process standards, decision rights, controls, and governed variations – and ensures that improvements deliver measurable results. This is a role for a systems thinker who architects how the supply chain operates across Plan / Source / Deliver and key interfaces, not a transactional process documenter.

Requirements

15+ years in supply chain process design, operations excellence, or operating model roles in a global enterprise, with demonstrated end-to-end scope beyond a single function.
Proven ability to build operating mechanisms (standards, decision rights, governance, controls, measures) that scale across regions and cross-functional teams.
Strong systems thinking and trade-off management skills: able to optimize locally within enterprise standards and variation rules and to articulate downstream impacts and constraints.
Experience working with enterprise platforms (Oracle preferred) and partnering with IT on process-to-system translation, including business rules, requirements, and acceptance criteria.
High data fluency: understanding of master data, transaction flows, disciplined KPI definition, and practical data quality controls in an operational context.
Executive-level influence and facilitation skills; able to align senior stakeholders without direct authority and coach teams toward consistent execution.
Excellent organizational and project management skills, with a track record of identifying and resolving risks, issues, and dependencies and delivering initiatives on-time and on-budget.
Experience leveraging AI, automation and desktop tools to increase individual productivity and as solution options.

Nice To Haves

Lean/Six Sigma (or equivalent demonstrated practice).
Background in high-growth or large-scale transformation environments, especially involving major ERP or operating model change.
Experience with operating model design and implementation.
Experience with formal change management methodology.

Responsibilities

Architect end-to-end supply chain processes (Plan / Source / Deliver and key interfaces), making cross-functional handoffs, decision points, and constraints explicit, and driving simplification and repeatability at scale.
Define and maintain global standards including process blueprints, standard work/SOPs, business rules, RACI/decision rights, escalation paths, and a pragmatic variation policy (what must be global, what can be configured, and what can vary locally) with clear rationale and governance.
Establish objectives and priorities with stakeholders based on data-based ROI determinations and business objectives.
Effectively facilitate problem identification, knowledge sharing and solutioning across complex stakeholder groups.
Lead solution implementation and/or identify resource needs to achieve objectives
Design practical controls at critical points (e.g., promise/commit, allocation, master data touchpoints, quality holds, supplier escalation), specifying evidence expectations that are workable in real operations.
Lead systemic defect elimination, driving root-cause problem solving across process, data, system, and behavior, and reducing dependence on workarounds via a managed workaround registry with owner, risk, expiry, and exit plan.
Leverage analytics and AI tools to accelerate process mapping, root-cause analysis, and scenario design, multiplying the impact and speed of improvements.
Partner with Data Governance to define process data requirements, KPI definitions, and data quality expectations that enable one version of the truth for decision making.
Partner with IT to align process intent with system capabilities and to drive clear business rules and requirements (epics/stories, acceptance criteria) while minimizing unnecessary customization, especially on enterprise platforms (Oracle preferred).
Measure outcomes and drive follow-through by defining success criteria and KPIs for adoption/compliance and performance impact, monitoring leading indicators, and coordinating corrective actions when targets aren’t met.
Manage a team of 3-5 process engineers and analysts (potential future scope).
Drive a culture of continuous improvement.