AI Program manager

Location: Milwaukee, WI |
Schedule: Full-time

An established manufacturing organization is accelerating its use of Artificial Intelligence to unlock capacity, improve quality, and fuel growth across North America. As the AI Program Manager, you will build and run a portfolio of AI initiatives that create efficiencies by automating repetitive tasks and removing process waste. You will partner with Operations, Sales, Marketing, IT, HR, and Finance to select the right problems, deliver measurable outcomes quickly, and scale wins across plant sites to increase revenue, reduce cost, and eliminate waste, all while maintaining and supporting corporate policies, procedures, work instructions, and required documentation.

• Conduct stakeholder interviews to capture business objectives and constraints; translate high-level goals into clear, actionable AI project requirements.
• Build simple business cases with respective departments; baseline current performance and quantify benefits.
• Work with business stakeholders to prioritize initiatives by value, impact, labor hour avoidance, and risk mitigation.
• Prioritize the AI program and project roadmap into short, iterative deliverables based on business impact and feasibility.
• Run stage-gated delivery (scope - pilot - scale) aligned to internal Center of Excellence project governance; set decision forums, risk controls, and incremental results.
• Work with Business and IT to develop data and IT infrastructure and tools supporting the AI program roadmap.
• Ensure ownership of agents and AI workflows transitions to business stakeholders.
• Engage with change management to ensure AI projects are accepted and integrated into standard processes.
• Track and report on program benefit metrics such as savings, improved experience, reduced waste, and efficiency improvements.
• Share AI knowledge to upskill the organization and coach stakeholders on identifying AI use cases.
• Partner with Legal/HR on data privacy and AI use policies.
• Ensure solutions comply with corporate cybersecurity and risk guidelines.

• Bachelor's degree in Project/Program Management, Engineering, Manufacturing, Computer Science, Data/Analytics, or a related field.
• 3+ years leading data/AI/automation programs within manufacturing operations, with a proven track record delivering hard dollar benefits and labor hour avoidance.
• Mastery of program management practices including business cases, roadmaps, stage gates, and financials.
• Excellent stakeholder communication and leadership skills across Operations, Sales, Marketing, IT, HR, and Finance.
• Strong collaboration, communication, adaptability, problem solving, analytical thinking, and business acumen.

• Background in manufacturing or related environments.
• Lean / Six Sigma certification; experience embedding AI within continuous improvement programs.
• Experience with AI tools such as MS CoPilot Studio, MS Fabric, and MS Azure Foundry.

This is an opportunity to lead AI-driven transformation across a multi-site manufacturing operation, directly shaping how AI becomes embedded in everyday business processes to increase revenue, reduce cost, and eliminate waste.