Operations Systems Lead

You will be the operational heartbeat of our operational systems, spanning Supply Chain, Manufacturing and Order Fulfilment, reporting into the Demand Manager and working cross‑functionally with every system user across our UK sites (Rudie’s Kitchen and Ace’s Pantry) and our site in Poland (Sam’s Kitchen).

This is a key role sitting at the intersection of supply chain, finance, warehouse, fulfilment and production. You will be the ultimate owner of site SAP utilisation, tasked with "chasing the numbers" through the system to ensure our digital data perfectly mirrors our physical reality. You’ll balance immediate troubleshooting with long‑term strategic projects to optimise our processes as we scale. Your north star is a matching systematic movement for every physical movement in our operation.

We are looking for a proactive, system‑savvy specialist who views SAP as a tool for excellence rather than just a database. You understand that a missed transaction isn’t just a data error, it’s a ripple effect that impacts our P&L and our ability to deliver great service to our customers.

You will work on system optimisations, efficiencies and automations. Butternut is a company that embraces AI for improvements, but always keeps a human loop, meaning you should be excited and passionate about the use of AI, but build processes with a squad member owning the quality and accuracy, and with the goal of improving day‑to‑day efficiency and accuracy.

In this role, you can expect to…

Be the owner of Inventory & Transaction Integrity

• Lead the team on the audit of transactions across our warehouse, fulfilment and production operations in both kitchens, ensuring accurate, systematic transactions occur for all stages of the physical process.
• Drive the reporting of systematic compliance at a team, site and group level, engaging with stakeholders of all levels to continue to elevate the importance of this topic.
• You will be able to convert compliance into a financial impact to effectively garner awareness and support for the topic.
• You will play a key role in master data control within our operations, whether these be SKU information, BOM information or location information; it will be centrally controlled for effective management.

Drive up & maintain high levels of compliance

• Through the continuous reporting process, you’ll highlight areas of improvement across the operation where compliance is below target or trending in the wrong direction, and continuously audit improvements.
• You will work with team leaders & department heads, alongside the people and systems team, to coordinate and execute training for both areas where compliance is below target, refresher training or new‑joiner training.

Reduce the friction of system use

• Review and iterate our systematic processes to either reduce the friction of usage and compliance, or improve controls to remove discrepancies through analysing the data, active listening with our teams in the kitchen or observations of how tasks are carried out in practice. We strive for accurate records with the fewest number of steps.
• You’ll engage stakeholders and manage change across multiple shifts and sites, ensuring that when we go live with a change, we follow it through to successful completion and full embedding within the day‑to‑day.
• You will explore new technologies or functionality that is released, working with our SAP engineering team and our software suppliers to understand how best to implement and roll these out successfully to our sites.
• Explore automations and solutions to increase system effectiveness and reduce manual processing tasks.

People leadership
:

You confidently lead your team's performance in a supportive and developmental manner, with three direct reports in the UK and two in Poland, ensuring a high level of team engagement across both sites.

• Adaptability
  :
  Comfortable juggling priorities across production, warehouse and fulfilment.
• Analytical
  :
  Able to jump into the detail of the data to understand where the gaps are, what they mean and how to close them.
• Self‑Starter & Problem Solver
  :
  You take ownership, spot problems early, and act without waiting for…