Director of Manufacturing Data Management - Decatur, IL

Archer Daniels Midland

Director of Manufacturing Data Management for ADM
This is an exempt level position.
Preferred Location: North American Headquarters in Decatur, IL

The Director of Manufacturing Data Management is the senior leader responsible for driving manufacturing digital transformation at ADM by leading efforts to capture, store, contextualize, and access shop floor data, and the integration with other company data to produce data sets that will be used to make decisions at all levels of the company. Your team will be responsible for managing data pipelines, ensuring data quality, and implementing governance frameworks that enable high-impact analytics and transformation initiatives. Reporting to the Head of Manufacturing Digital Transformation, this role ensures ADM’s plants and operations leverage advanced analytics, Industrial AI, and automation to improve productivity, quality, and reliability. By collaborating closely with analytics leaders, plant operations, and global technology teams, the leader scales manufacturing AI use cases, and embeds responsible AI practices across manufacturing operations. Your work will empower analytics teams to deliver insights faster and more reliably, while also enabling decentralized data usage through well-managed platforms and self-service capabilities.

This role requires a strong understanding of data architecture, governance, and integration strategies, as well as the ability to communicate technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders. You will play a key role in fostering a data-driven culture and ensuring that manufacturing data is a trusted asset across the organization.

About the Team
This team of Industrial Data Engineers maintain ADM’s enterprise data historian. In partnership with Global Technology, the team defines manufacturing data / AI requirements to build and maintain the edge devices, data pipelines, analytical models and cloud infrastructure that enable analytics at scale across global operations.

Key Responsibilities
Manufacturing Data/AI Strategy

Partner with Global Technology, define, execute data and AI strategy of the Manufacturing Digital Transformation Roadmap for adoption of Industrial AI across plants.
Align AI initiatives with manufacturing KPIs – Examples: throughput, yield, energy efficiency, and downtime reduction.
Champion data-driven decision making at shop-floor and enterprise levels.

Industrial AI Execution

Lead adoption of AI/ML models across the manufacturing enterprise, partnering with Global Technology for model development and engineering.
Lead the development of ADM’s strategy to provide data sets that can be leveraged across manufacturing.
Define manufacturing data requirements and governance standards, partnering with Global Technology on architecture and systems integration.
Ensure high data quality, consistency, and availability for analytics supporting hybrid architectures, running on-premise, edge and in the cloud .
Collaborate with analytics teams to advance manufacturing analytics use cases, coordinating with Global Technology to ensure pipeline reliability and performance.
Develop and maintain metadata management and data cataloging practices
Support the implementation of self-service data tools and platforms
Provide training and guidance to operational teams on data best practices
Monitor data usage and compliance with internal and external standards
Stay current with emerging data technologies and trends to inform strategy
Travel and on-call work as part of issue/escalations are expected as part of this position

Governance & Compliance

Establish data governance for plant data by strong collaboration with respective manufacturing and engineering domain teams
Ensure AI systems meet safety, reliability, and compliance standards.
Drive auditability of industrial AI models.

Responsible AI in Manufacturing

Champion responsible AI adoption in manufacturing, partnering with Global Technology to ensure AI solutions meet safety, reliability, and ethical standards in production environments.
In partnership with Global Technology, promote AI literacy among plant colleagues. Build trust in AI-driven recommendations for frontline teams.

Leadership & Collaboration

Lead Manufacturing Digital Transformation Data Team, serving as the primary business interface to Global Technology for AI engineering and platform development solutions.
Partner with plant leadership, operations leaders, and global digital teams on all things related to manufacturing data and AI initiatives.
Partner closely with ADM’s Global Technology team to manage vendor relationships for industrial AI platforms and automation solutions.

Qualifications

Bachelor’s in engineering, Computer Science, Data Science, or related field.
12–20 years of experience, with at least 5+ years in manufacturing digital leadership.
Proven track record of deploying and scaling AI and data management in industrial environments.
Strong knowledge of MES, SCADA, IoT, Advanced Process Controls.
Familiarity with cloud-based data architectures (e.g., Microsoft Azure, Databricks)
Experience in supporting plant operations and 24/7 operating environments
Awareness of data visualization and automation best practices
Strong interpersonal collaboration skills and ability to work across technology and business domains
Executive presence with ability to influence plant and enterprise leadership. Excellent verbal communication skills, with the ability to communicate and effectively engage with senior leadership and frontline teams.
Strong technical and problem-solving skills

Preferred Skills:

Experience with data cataloging tools
Knowledge of manufacturing execution systems (MES) and industrial data sources
Familiarity with analytics platforms such as Power BI, JMP, or AspenTech, PI
Experience with SQL, Python, or other data manipulation languages
Experience with cloud platforms such as Databricks and Azure Data Factory
Experience with industrial edge architectures, including tools such as Docker containers, InfluxDB, Grafana, NodeRed, MQTT, and Prometheus
Awareness of Lean Six Sigma principles and continuous improvement methodologies

Core Competencies

Manufacturing digital transformation vision
Industrial AI technical depth
Data Governance, data security & risk management
Ethical AI adoption in operations
Stakeholder influence across plants
Talent development in industrial data teams

Excited about this role but don’t think you meet every requirement listed? We encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this role or another one of our openings.

ADM requires the successful completion of a background check.

REF:113762BR

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