Director, Modern Manufacturing IT Capabilities

About Caterpillar Inc.

When you join Caterpillar, you're becoming part of a global team dedicated to building a better, more sustainable world. We are innovators, problem solvers, and future builders creating stronger communities through our work. We actively drive progress and innovation with our customers, where we work and live.

The Role: Director, Modern Manufacturing IT Capabilities

As the Director, Modern Manufacturing IT Capabilities, you will serve as a global platform owner, responsible for architecting, delivering, and scaling the digital systems that power world-class manufacturing at Caterpillar Inc. This leadership role involves defining and executing the enterprise strategy for modern ERP (SAP S/4HANA + QAD), Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), plant systems, and integration platforms. Your core mission will be to transform a complex, heterogeneous legacy landscape into a modern digital foundation that enables high-precision, high-velocity global operations.

You will be accountable for building and institutionalizing deep ERP and manufacturing systems expertise across the enterprise, ensuring capabilities are not only deployed but embedded as durable, repeatable, globally consistent competencies. Operating as a principal builder, you will shape digital factories, unify fragmented systems, simplify architecture, and deliver solutions that directly elevate safety, quality, throughput, sustainability, and cost competitiveness.

What You Will Do

• Global Manufacturing Platform Strategy: Own the multiyear technical strategy and capability roadmap for ERP, MES, plant systems, and enterprise-grade integration. Ensure scalability, standardization, and operational resilience. Accelerate the transition from legacy systems to modern, harmonized platforms with global patterns, reusable assets, and cloud-ready architectures. Tie platform evolution directly to measurable business outcomes such as OEE, first pass yield, cost per unit, lead time, and sustainability measures.
• ERP Depth, Expertise Building & Enterprise Institutionalization: Build deep functional and technical ERP expertise across Plan to Produce, manufacturing engineering, scheduling, execution, quality, maintenance, and inventory. Create global capability models including standards, development pathways, certification, playbooks, deployment kits, and architectural guardrails. Lead enterprise enablement for SAP S/4HANA and QAD, fostering a culture of internal expertise.
• MES and Plant Systems Modernization: Define and execute the global MES strategy, encompassing workflow orchestration, traceability, digital operator experience, real-time manufacturing insights, automated quality, and digital maintenance. Deliver platform standards for OT/IT convergence, IIoT, PLC/SCADA integration, equipment connectivity, and digital work instructions. Advance plant systems modernization through secure, resilient, scalable, and data-rich architectures.
• Enterprise Integration & Connected Manufacturing: Partner to build an end-to-end integration strategy across ERP, MES, plant systems, OT/PLC, IIoT, cloud analytics, and enterprise platforms. Drive implementation of global integration patterns (APIs, event-driven architectures, data streams) to ensure synchronized and intelligent factory operations. Collaborate with Architecture, Cybersecurity, Data, and Product Engineering to ensure world-class design and enterprise compliance.
• Operational Excellence & Mission Critical Reliability: Ensure always-on reliability of all manufacturing digital platforms supporting 24/7 global operations. Instill operational rigor through proactive stability engineering, observability, automation, zero defect releases, and lifecycle management. Reduce technical debt, eliminate legacy fragmentation, modernize interfaces, and strengthen cyber resilience across plant technology stacks.
• Global Deployment Leadership: Lead multi-region ERP/MES deployments with global template governance, end-to-end change management, and high-velocity execution. Apply Go See Act and structured operational diagnostics to identify capability gaps and accelerate plant readiness. Balance enterprise standardization with local operational nuance for adoption at scale.
• People Leadership & Organizational Capability Building: Lead global, multi-sourced, high-performing teams across architecture, operations, and manufacturing IT. Hire, develop, and retain top digital manufacturing talent, building succession pipelines for critical roles. Foster a culture of innovation, technical excellence, accountability, design simplicity, and enterprise-first decision making.

What You Have

Caterpillar Inc. is looking for candidates with strong business acumen, decision-making and critical thinking skills, and the ability to influence. Continuous transformation, organizational leadership, and talent management are key. Experience in matrix management and IT systems management is also essential.

The primary locations for this position are Irving, Texas or East Peoria, Illinois. Domestic relocation assistance is available for those who qualify. Travel up to 20% is expected. This position requires working onsite five days a week.

Key Skills/Competency

• ERP Systems (SAP S/4HANA, QAD)
• Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES)
• IT/OT Convergence
• IIoT & SCADA Integration
• Enterprise Architecture
• Digital Transformation
• Global Platform Strategy
• Change Management
• Team Leadership
• Operational Excellence