Senior Manager, Smart Factory Digital Solutions

Rich’s, also known as Rich Products Corporation, is a family-owned food company dedicated to inspiring possibilities. From cakes and icings to pizza, appetizers and specialty toppings, our products are used in homes, restaurants and bakeries around the world. Beyond great food, our customers also gain insights to help them stay competitive, no matter their size. Our portfolio includes creative solutions geared at helping food industry professionals compete in foodservice, retail, in-store bakery, deli, and prepared foods, among others. Working in 100 locations globally, with annual sales exceeding $4 billion, Rich’s is a global leader with a focus on everything that family makes possible. Rich’s®—Infinite Possibilities. One Family.

 

Job Summary

The Senior Manager, Smart Factory Digital Solutions is responsible for leading the strategy, deployment, and scaling of Smart Factory initiatives across manufacturing sites globally. This role ensures that digital transformation enables Operations to drive performance, visibility, and business value through the adoption of digital tools and technologies across the global supply chain. This role will also drive IT and OT convergence, leveraging Industry 4.0 technologies, ensuring seamless integration of data-driven solutions to drive operational excellence, predictive insights, and enhance decision-making. The position is remote, with up to 25% travel in the US and globally, to manufacturing sites and corporate offices. The ideal candidate combines technical acumen with strong leadership and program management skills to drive productivity and operational excellence across global manufacturing sites.

Key Accountabilities and Outcomes

1. Smart Factory Strategy and Development

· Leads the development of business-driven Smart Factory strategies, roadmap, ensuring alignment with manufacturing operations priorities.

· Oversee the deployment and development of Smart Factory digital solutions and systems (e.g., OEE, MES, TPM, etc.).

· Coordinates activities across Smart Factory domains to ensure tools and use cases are deployed efficiently, with measurable business impact.

2. Collaboration and Stakeholder Engagement:

· Act as the IT/OT business partner to facilitate strong collaboration across Operations, Engineering, and IT, and prioritizing business needs into scalable digital solutions.

· Partner with Operations, Engineering, Quality, EHS, and Supply Chain stakeholders to drive alignment ensuring site needs and business timelines for operational autonomy.

· Collaborate across functions globally, to ensure standardization of deployment methods, documentation, and tool usage.

3. Program Management and Cross-Functional Leadership

· Manages the end-to-end delivery of Smart Factory projects across sites, ensuring timelines, resources, and deliverables are met.

· Coordinates internal Product Owners, site champions, and external vendors to drive successful implementations, with direct supervision of Smart Factory Digital Solutions analysts and data analysts.

· Leads communications, project and technology governance, providing regular updates to senior leadership and stakeholders.

4. Technology Leadership

· Lead data integration of manufacturing systems, plant floor technologies (e.g. SCADA, PLC, IIoT, MES) and enterprise platforms (SAP, cloud, data lake) to enable visibility and enhance decision-making.

· Develop and implement real-time IT/OT data intelligence solutions across manufacturing plants to optimize asset performance, improve productivity, and drive operational efficiency.

· Foster innovation in digital capabilities to enhance frontline worker productivity and operational efficiency through advanced data analytics and AI-driven process optimization.

5. Operational Ownership and Technology Governance

· Defines clear ownership models for all levels of deployment and sustainability at the enterprise and site-level management of Smart Factory tools and processes.

· Establishes a Smart Factory Maturity Model and supports assessments that identify site readiness, progression opportunities, and drive sustainability of digital solutions.

· Ensure robust governance of digital solutions, including enterprise architecture, data quality, cybersecurity, and compliance.

6. Business Impact and Value realization

· Ensures Smart Factory deployments lead to measurable improvements in areas such as uptime, labor effectiveness, process visibility, and throughput.

· Builds and maintains deployment trackers, KPIs, and scorecards to visualize site adoption and program impact.

· Champions the operational application of Smart Factory insights, enabling plants to use digital tools in day-to-day performance management.

Knowledge, Experience and Ski