SAP Cutover Lead

Robert Hess Search Group•Batavia, NY

3d•Remote

About The Position

The SAP Cutover Lead leads the planning, coordination, execution, and governance of cutover activities for SAP S/4HANA deployments, with a primary focus on SAP Extended Warehouse Management (EWM) and Manufacturing implementations. The role coordinates business stakeholders, IT teams, implementation partners, manufacturing facilities, and warehouse operations to support transitions from legacy systems to SAP while minimizing operational risk and maintaining business continuity. The position leads cutover strategy development, detailed planning, mock cutovers, go-live readiness assessments, production deployments, command center activities, and hypercare support. It owns the detailed cutover plan and deployment runbooks, coordinates work across functional, technical, infrastructure, security, and data migration teams, and oversees readiness checkpoints and go/no-go processes. This is a three-month contract that could expand to a year. It is a 1099 position paying $110–$120 per hour. The role is remote, requires residence in the continental United States, and involves approximately 5% travel. The candidate must be available onsite during go-live activities and may travel for mock cutovers, stabilization, and hypercare. Primary travel is to Batavia, New York, with additional travel to Lynnfield, Massachusetts, as required.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Business, Supply Chain, Engineering, Operations Management, or a related field.
10 or more years of SAP implementation experience.
5 or more years leading SAP cutovers for large-scale SAP programs.
Extensive experience leading SAP EWM go-lives and warehouse deployment activities.
Extensive experience supporting SAP Manufacturing deployments.
Experience coordinating multi-site deployment and rollout programs.
Experience managing large cross-functional implementation teams.
Experience working with system integrators and third-party consulting organizations.
Knowledge of SAP S/4HANA, SAP EWM, SAP Manufacturing, SAP Production Planning (PP), SAP Quality Management (QM), SAP supply chain processes, SAP Logistics Execution, and SAP data migration.
Experience with cutover planning, go-live readiness, mock cutovers, deployment management, command center leadership, hypercare management, risk management, issue resolution, business continuity planning, and dependency management.
Executive communication, stakeholder management, cross-functional leadership, program coordination, vendor management, facilitation, decision-making under pressure, and conflict resolution skills.
Must reside in the continental United States and be available for approximately 5% travel, including onsite go-live activities.

Nice To Haves

Experience in manufacturing, distribution, consumer packaged goods (CPG), or food and beverage industries.
SAP EWM certification.
Experience leading SAP EWM deployments in high-volume warehouse environments.
Experience supporting manufacturing plant SAP transformations.
Experience with phased and wave-based deployment strategies.
Experience supporting food and beverage manufacturing operations.
PMP or related project management certification.
Experience supporting 24x7 manufacturing and distribution operations.
Experience leading multiple successful SAP go-live events and enterprise cutovers.

Responsibilities

Develop end-to-end SAP cutover strategies across warehouse, manufacturing, supply chain, and corporate functions.
Define cutover governance, processes, templates, milestone reviews, and approval procedures.
Establish integrated cutover plans for SAP S/4HANA, EWM, Manufacturing, and related systems.
Coordinate readiness checkpoints and go/no-go decision processes.
Own and maintain the detailed cutover plan, deployment activities, and dependencies.
Coordinate business, functional, technical, infrastructure, security, and data migration activities.
Develop execution runbooks and deployment schedules, monitor progress, and ensure milestone commitments are met.
Manage critical-path activities and escalation processes.
Lead execution planning for SAP EWM warehouse go-lives and cutover planning for manufacturing plant deployments.
Coordinate inventory conversion, warehouse readiness, production readiness, and logistics transition activities.
Support operational continuity across distribution and manufacturing facilities.
Plan and facilitate mock cutover exercises; validate durations, sequencing, dependencies, and resource requirements.
Identify gaps from rehearsal events, track remediation, and prepare deployment teams for production execution.
Coordinate deployment activities across workstreams and lead cutover planning workshops and execution meetings.
Facilitate command center activities during deployment periods.
Identify deployment risks, develop mitigations, maintain risk and issue logs, and coordinate contingency and rollback procedures.
Escalate critical issues and drive resolution during deployment and stabilization.
Coordinate transition into hypercare, support post-go-live stabilization, track production issues, and facilitate rapid resolution.
Ensure a successful handoff to application support and operations teams.
Maintain cutover schedules, readiness assessments, risk logs, and deployment documentation.
Establish cutover management standards and best practices and ensure compliance with change and release management processes.
Provide deployment status updates and executive reporting.