Manufacturing and Innovation Excellence Lead

Manufacturing and Innovation Excellence Lead Overview

The Manufacturing and Innovcation Excellence (MIE) Lead is a high-impact, cross-functional program leadership role at the heart of CET's Heavy-Duty innovation engine. Reporting to the HD Manufacturing & MIE Manager, you will own manufacturing readiness for the HD division's most critical product and process innovation programs — ensuring our plants are fully prepared to deliver Day 1 performance at scale across cost, quality, delivery, and safety.

This is a role for an experienced technical leader who wants to drive outcomes across an entire division, partner daily with leaders in Commercial, Development, Engineering, and Manufacturing, and gain meaningful exposure to multiple levels of leadership — all without the constraints of people management. Your leverage comes from expertise, influence, and disciplined program execution.

What You'll Do

As the MIE Lead, you will serve as the connective tissue between innovation and manufacturing — translating business case requirements into executable readiness, surfacing the tradeoffs that matter, and driving the decisions that protect program outcomes.

Own Manufacturing Readiness

• Set the end state, align assumptions, and drive the integrated plan for each innovation program to deliver cost, quality, delivery, and safety performance on Day 1.
• Define and execute the operational readiness system — requirements, evidence, and action plans — so plants have the people, process, equipment, controls, and capability to run at scale and sustain.

Drive Critical Decisions

• Serve as a core-team decision partner on CET's most critical innovation projects.
• Surface options, quantify tradeoffs, and drive timely alignment across Commercial, Development, Engineering, and Manufacturing to optimize overall program outcomes.
• Manage ambiguity and competing assumptions with rigor and pace.

Deliver Transformational Innovation

• Identify and mature critical process innovations that deliver transformational cost reduction.
• Translate opportunities into executable deliverables that feed the HD cost reduction pipeline.

Evolve the MIE System

• Own and evolve the CET MIE strategy — operating cadence, standards, and readiness expectations.
• Scale best practices across programs to raise the ceiling on how CET delivers innovation to manufacturing.

Influence and Communicate

• Secure plant and program priorities, resource alignment, and accountability through influence rather than authority.
• Communicate status, risks, and recommendations clearly to steering teams and senior leadership.

What You'll Bring

Required Qualifications

• B.S. in Mechanical, Electrical, or Materials Engineering (or a related engineering/technical discipline), or equivalent experience.
• Minimum of 5 years of technical, manufacturing-facing experience.
• Demonstrated ability to translate business case requirements into integrated plans, clear requirements, and evidence-based readiness to run at scale.
• Proven success driving decisions and managing tradeoffs across Commercial, Development, Engineering, and Manufacturing stakeholders.
• Strong technical and analytical rigor — problem-solving fundamentals, data interpretation, and disciplined use of engineering methods to lead teams and close gaps.
• Program execution discipline — establishing operating cadence, managing multiple workstreams, and communicating status and risk to executive audiences.
• Ability to influence without authority and secure commitment across plants, programs, and functions.

Preferred Qualifications

• Direct manufacturing (plant-based) experience in a high-volume or process manufacturing environment.
• Working knowledge of the LFM or LFPM framework or equivalent integrated operations methodology.
• Six Sigma Green Belt training or certification.
• Lean Manufacturing expertise.
• Proficiency with JMP and experience with Design of Experiments (DOE).
• Demonstrated ability to translate engineering solutions into requirements, and further into process and/or equipment designs that deliver on required performance criteria.

Who You Are

• High-ownership operator with a bias for action — you move programs forward, you don't wait for clarity.
• Trusted cross-functional partner who builds durable relationships and leads effectively without formal authority.
• Clear, concise, data-based communicator with executive presence and the ability to adapt your message to any audience — from plant floor to senior leadership.
• Systems thinker who can hold strategy, program detail, and plant reality in view simultaneously.