Solution Architect - Manufacturing Systems

Founded over 35 years ago, First Quality is a family-owned company that has grown from a small business in McElhattan, Pennsylvania into a group of companies, employing over 5,000 team members, while maintaining our family values and entrepreneurial spirit. With corporate offices in New York and Pennsylvania and 8 manufacturing campuses across the U.S. and Canada, the companies within the First Quality group produce high-quality personal care and household products for large retailers and healthcare organizations. Our personal care and household product portfolio includes baby diapers, wipes, feminine pads, paper towels, bath tissue, adult incontinence products, laundry detergents, fabric finishers, and dishwash solutions. In addition, we manufacture certain raw materials and components used in the manufacturing of these products, including flexible print and packaging solutions.

Guided by our values of humility, unity, and integrity, we leverage advanced technology and innovation to drive growth and create new opportunities. At First Quality, you'll find a collaborative environment focused on continuous learning, professional development, and our mission to Make Things Better.

We are seeking a Solution Architect - Manufacturing Systems for our First Quality Enterprises, LLC company. This position will be remote out of Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Georgia or Ohio. The IT Solution Architect - Manufacturing Systems, is responsible for the strategic planning, architecture, implementation, and continuous improvement of manufacturing technology solutions supporting production, quality, material handling automation, and related business operations. This role partners closely with business leaders, Centers of Excellence (COEs), Operations, Engineering, and IT teams to ensure technology investments align with business strategy while delivering secure, reliable, scalable, and supportable solutions. The Solution Architect provides technical leadership across the full solution lifecycle-from business requirements through design, implementation, operational support, and future roadmap planning.

Primary responsibilities include:

Business Partnership

• Serve as the primary IT advisor to Manufacturing, Quality, Warehousing, Logistics, and Automation business leaders.
• Develop trusted relationships with operational stakeholders.
• Translate business objectives into technology roadmaps and solution architectures.
• Facilitate strategic planning for 3-5-year technology initiatives.

People Manager

• Manage the assigned Solution Architects and their teams to foster cross domain collaboration, ensure alignment on end-to-end process flows, data models and integration points rather than optimizing only within their silos.
• Prioritize Skills Development and knowledge sharing across teams so team members stay current on both their specialized domains and the broader enterprise architecture, integration, and cloud/platform capabilities.
• Align individual and team objectives with measurable business outcomes and regularly review solution roadmaps against those outcomes.
• Complete all administrative tasks associated with people management with consistency and mindfulness.

Solution Architecture

• Lead architecture and design for manufacturing applications and integrations.
• Ensure solutions are scalable, resilient, secure, and maintainable.
• Develop and maintain architecture standards and reference models.
• Evaluate new technologies and recommend adoption where appropriate.

Manufacturing Systems

Provide technical leadership for systems including:

• Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES)
• Quality Management Systems
• Material Handling Automation
• Industrial data historians
• Shop floor data collection
• Equipment integrations
• Operational reporting and analytics

Project Leadership

• Support project teams during planning, design, implementation, and deployment.
• Review low level solution designs for compliance with enterprise architecture standards.
• Identify technical risks and mitigation strategies.
• Ensure continuity and successful transition across Plan, Build, Run.

Governance

• Establish architecture governance for manufacturing technology.
• Participate in technology standards and design reviews.
• Maintain documentation, diagrams, and solution roadmaps.

Vendor Management

• Work with software vendors, systems integrators, and equipment suppliers.
• Participate in software selection and proof-of-concept evaluations.
• Review Statements of Work and technical deliverables.
• Build depth via staff augmentation in key business areas.

Operational Excellence

• Improve system reliability, availability, and performance.
• Support business continuity and disaster recovery planning.
• Identify opportunities to reduce technical debt.

Mentoring

• Mentor solution architects, analysts, and solution engineers.
• Share knowledge across IT teams.
• Encourage architectural best practices and continuous learning.

The ideal candidate should possess the following:

• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, or related field.
• 10+ years of experience implementing enterprise manufacturing solutions.
• Experience working directly with manufacturing operations.
• Strong solution architecture and systems integration experience.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional initiatives.
• Travel across all First Quality North American sites is required and is anticipated to be 40-50%

Preferred Experience

• Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) and Data historians
• Quality Management Systems
• Industrial Automation
• SAP integration
• Cloud platforms (Azure preferred)
• Knowledge of Integration Capabilities
• Operational Technology (OT)
• Enterprise architecture frameworks

What We Offer You

We believe that by continuously improving the quality of our benefits, we can help to raise the quality of life for our team members and their families. At First Quality you will receive:

• Competitive base salary and bonus opportunities
• Paid time off (three-week minimum)
• Medical, dental and vision starting day one
• 401(k) with employer match
• Paid parental leave
• Child and family care assistance (dependent care FSA with employer match up to $3750)
• Bundle of joy benefit (years' worth of free diapers to all team members with a new baby)
• Tuition assistance
• Wellness program with savings of up to $4,000 per year on insurance premiums
• ...and more!

First Quality is committed to protecting information under the care of First Quality Enterprises commensurate with leading industry standards and applicable regulations. As such, First Quality provides at least annual training regarding data privacy and security to employees who, as a result of their role specifications, may come in to contact with sensitive data.

First Quality is an Equal Opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, gender identification, or protected Veteran status.