Director of Digital Manufacturing

Overview

Consider joining the Pennex family as a Director of Digital Manufacturing. The Director of Digital Manufacturing leads the digital manufacturing and shop-floor information systems strategy and execution, with primary accountability for IT initiatives related to Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) and Quality Management Systems (QMS). Reporting to the VP of IT and based in Leetonia, Ohio, this role partners with senior leadership to ensure organizational alignment and sustained executive support for change.

This leader partners with Operations, Quality, Engineering, and Corporate IT to ensure systems align with business goals, support day-to-day plant operations and quality control needs, and deliver measurable improvements in safety, quality, delivery, and productivity. Critically, this is a change leadership role as much as a technology role.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Organizational Change Management & Adoption: Design and execute structured OCM programs including communication plans, training, floor-level engagement, and feedback loops to drive lasting adoption among operators, supervisors, quality technicians, and engineers. Apply formal OCM methodologies (e.g., ADKAR, Prosci, Kotter) to build sustainable behavior change, not just system go-lives. Build credibility and trust with frontline employees who may be skeptical of new systems or processes.
• MES & QMS Program Leadership: Own the roadmap, prioritization, and delivery of Pennex MES and QMS initiatives, including business case development, stakeholder alignment, and value realization.
• MES & QMS Product Management: Own the licensing management, vendor management, and coordination of application updates/patches for the MES and QMS packages used in the plants.
• Requirements & Solution Design: Lead process discovery and requirements gathering across production and quality processes (e.g., routing, labor reporting, downtime, scrap, SPC, nonconformance, corrective action), translating needs into IT system designs, configurations, and integration requirements.
• Delivery, Testing & Implementation: Direct end-to-end implementation activities of new or significantly upgraded MES and QMS applications including vendor management, system integration testing, user acceptance testing (UAT), cutover planning, training, and communications to ensure successful adoption.
• Plant IT Support for Operations & Quality Control: Serve as the primary IT leader for manufacturing and quality applications and related shop-floor technology needs; triage and resolve issues, coordinate with internal IT teams and vendors, ensure that Corporate IT department’s relevant policies, procedures, and governance are applied, communicate status to stakeholders, and drive root-cause prevention for recurring problems.
• Team Leadership: Lead, develop, and retain a team of 2 to 3 IT professionals. Set clear priorities aligned to the plant roadmap, provide coaching and feedback, and build team capability and accountability.

Ideal Candidate Will Have:

Education and Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems, Engineering, Manufacturing, or a related field required; advanced degree preferred.
• 7 or more years of experience delivering IT solutions in a manufacturing environment; aluminum extrusion and/or metals processing experience strongly preferred.
• 5 or more years of hands‑on experience implementing and supporting MES and/or QMS platforms, including integrations with ERP, automation/controls, and reporting/analytics tools.
• Demonstrated leadership of cross-functional initiatives with operations and quality stakeholders, including requirements management, testing, training, and go-live stabilization.
• Proven track record of driving technology adoption with frontline, hourly work forces in environments; experience in plant-floor-level relationship building required.
• Formal OCM experience (ADKAR, Prosci, Kotter, or equivalent) strongly preferred.

Other Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Strong understanding of manufacturing and quality processes and how MES/QMS systems support them (traceability, genealogy, SPC, NCR/CAPA, document…