Manufacturing Business Consultant – Batch & Process Manufacturing

Deacom: Manufacturing Business Consultant – Batch & Process Manufacturing

ECI is seeking a highly motivated, dynamic, high-energy professional with deep, hands-on batch and process manufacturing experience to join our Professional Services team. This is not a purely technical implementation role – we are looking for someone who can sit down with a plant manager, VP of operations, or head of quality and speak their language, understand the pressures of their business, and help chart a path forward. The Deacom ERP platform is the vehicle for that change, but the value this person brings starts with manufacturing and operational expertise.

Our Manufacturing Business Consultants act as trusted advisors to customers in formula-driven industries such as food and beverage, chemicals, nutraceuticals, and pharmaceuticals/CPG. You will be expected to diagnose operational, quality, and production challenges the way an experienced manufacturing consultant would, then translate those recommendations into a configured, working Deacom solution – creating an exceptional customer experience and durable business outcomes, not just a successful go-live.

What You Will Do

• Act as a manufacturing business consultant first: assess a customer's production floor, planning, quality, and supply chain practices, and identify where their processes fall short of industry best practice – independent of what the software does today.
• Advise customers on operational improvements to production planning, scheduling, capacity utilization, changeover/downtime reduction, yield management, and waste/scrap reduction, drawing on your own plant-floor or operations experience.
• Recommend paths forward for a customer's business – organizational, procedural, or technological – and clearly explain the trade-offs, not just the ERP configuration required to support them.
• Be the primary representative and go-to resource for new customers, leading sessions that combine business/operations consulting with system implementation of the all-inclusive ECI Deacom ERP platform.
• Lead customer sessions to identify and document current and future business initiatives, gap analysis within current systems and/or processes, and reporting/data analytics requirements.
• Apply hands-on manufacturing expertise in formula/recipe management, including scaling, yield and potency calculations, co-products and by-products, and unit-of-measure conversions – and advise on how customers should be managing these today, not only how Deacom will.
• Advise on and configure lot traceability, genealogy, and recall readiness (forward and backward traceability) to meet customer and regulatory expectations.
• Serve as a knowledgeable sounding board on quality control and compliance practices relevant to regulated or specification-driven industries, such as FDA, HACCP, and other industry-specific requirements.
• Understand and deliver upon the ECI Deacom implementation methodology, including:
• Requirements gathering through existing process reviews
• Systems design and fit-gap analysis
• System configuration and setup
• Engineering Deacom solutions based on complex batch/process manufacturing requirements
• Concept validation and user acceptance testing
• Pre-implementation system testing
• Data migration and data formatting recommendations
• Consulting recap and activity reporting
• Define and drive Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that help customers benchmark their manufacturing operations and continuously improve production, quality, and inventory performance.
• Build enough credibility with plant and operations leadership that they view you as a manufacturing peer, not just a software implementer.
• Travel to customers throughout the U.S. and Canada, averaging approximately 25% of the time, with travel potentially increasing to as much as 50% during certain project phases, such as go-live and other key customer milestones.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in business, supply chain, operations management, engineering, or equivalent
• 5+ years of hands-on experience working in or directly consulting for a batch or process manufacturing environment (e.g., food and beverage, chemicals, nutraceuticals, or pharmaceuticals), ideally in a plant operations, quality, supply chain, or process improvement role
• Demonstrated ability to evaluate a manufacturing operation and recommend improvements to production planning, scheduling, capacity, yield, and waste – with or without a software change
• Strong working knowledge of formulation/recipe management, production scheduling, and lot traceability practices in a process manufacturing setting
• Comfortable acting as a consultant and advisor to plant managers, operations leaders, and quality teams, not solely as a software trainer
• Willingness and availability to travel on-site to customers domestically and internationally, up to 50% of the time
• ERP product knowledge and prior experience in software implementation or consultation; 3+ years of ERP experience preferred
• Understanding of common industry business practices in manufacturing, operations, distribution, and finance
• Ability to present complex operational and technical concepts clearly and concisely to audiences ranging from plant floor supervisors to executive leadership, via telephone and in person
• Excellent organizational skills, attention to detail, and a self-motivated drive to deliver high-quality work
• Excellent presentation and written/oral communication skills
• Professional presence suitable for direct client interaction by telephone
• Valid driver's license and/or passport for required travel within the US and Canada
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office products and Microsoft Windows

Additional Qualifications (Not Required)

• Prior experience as a manufacturing/operations consultant, plant manager, or continuous improvement lead (e.g., Lean, Six Sigma, or similar)
• Experience with quality management or regulatory compliance systems (e.g., HACCP, FDA, SQF, or similar)
• Experience working with customers on business process improvement or operational excellence projects
• Experience using Microsoft SQL Server queries, views, and stored procedures
• APICS/CPIM certification a plus
• Proficiency in MS Visio, designing process mappings and flowcharts to illustrate workflow