Director of Supplier Development and Production Acceleration

Arlington, VA

Position Title:
Director of Supplier Development and Production Acceleration

Program: Transformation, Acceleration, and Supplier Capacity Team (TASC)

Category: Funded
Location: Hybrid, Government and supplier locations, as assigned
Schedule: Full Time
Travel: Frequent domestic travel, including supplier-site deployments and Government meetings
Security Clearance: U.S. citizenship and the ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government Top Secret security clearance are required. An active Secret or Top-Secret clearance is preferred but is not required to apply. Clearance sponsorship may be available for qualified candidates, subject to contract requirements and Government authorization. Any assignment before clearance approval will be limited to authorized unclassified duties.

Position Overview

ACT1 Federal seeks a Director of Supplier Development and Production Acceleration to lead a team of approximately six to seven Senior Supplier Development and Manufacturing Readiness Engineers supporting Department of the Navy industrial-base initiatives, particularly missile production and critical supplier capacity.

The Director will bring substantial automotive manufacturing, supplier-development, industrialization, and production-launch experience to the challenge of accelerating defense production. This individual will organize and lead concurrent supplier interventions, establish consistent assessment and recovery methods, allocate engineering resources, and ensure improvements translate into sustained delivery of conforming products.

The successful candidate will have personally led difficult supplier recoveries and production ramp-ups before progressing to responsibility for multiple engineers, suppliers, plants, or manufacturing programs. The role requires a leader who can challenge a capacity assessment on the factory floor, coach an engineer through a recovery plan, engage a supplier executive, and explain production risks and decisions to senior Government leaders.

The Director will report to ACT1’s TASC Program Manager and coordinate Government priorities through the established program structure.

Responsibilities

Team Leadership and Resource Deployment

• Lead, supervise, and develop a team of approximately six to seven supplier-development and manufacturing-readiness engineers.
• Translate approved Government priorities into supplier assignments, assessment objectives, recovery activities, and measurable team outcomes.
• Match engineers to suppliers based on commodity expertise, process knowledge, risk, urgency, and availability.
• Establish staffing, travel, coverage, and escalation plans for concurrent supplier interventions.
• Coach engineers on manufacturing diagnosis, supplier engagement, structured problem solving, and verification of results.
• Review team performance and work products; identify capability gaps and recommend additional technical support.
• Work with the TASC Program Manager, supply-chain lead, and Government stakeholders to prioritize suppliers by their effect on required production and delivery outcomes.
• Consider critical-path dependencies, production shortfalls, recovery lead time, substitutability, qualification constraints, and potential capacity benefit.
• Maintain an integrated view of active supplier interventions, resource requirements, risks, milestones, and decisions needed.
• Identify common constraints across suppliers and distinguish local process problems from systemic issues involving demand, technical data, engineering, material, qualification, or funding.
• Recommend when to intensify, redirect, supplement, or conclude an intervention based on evidence and approved priorities.

Technical Direction and Quality…