Senior Industrial Engineer - Capacity Planning
Remote
Senior Industrial Engineer – Capacity & Capability Planning
Location: Tempe, AZ | Buffalo, NY | Wilmington, NC
Travel: 90-100% Global Travel Required
About Client:
Our client is a rapidly growing manufacturer supporting the expanding data center infrastructure market. As the organization continues to scale, we are seeking a highly experienced Senior Industrial Engineer to lead capacity and capability planning initiatives across a global manufacturing network.
This is a high-impact role responsible for evaluating manufacturing capacity, identifying constraints, developing expansion strategies, and supporting new facility launches, joint ventures, and major production growth initiatives. The position offers significant visibility and the opportunity to influence strategic manufacturing decisions across multiple domestic and international operations.
Position Summary
The Senior Industrial Engineer - Capacity & Capability Planning will lead enterprise and site-level manufacturing capacity analysis, capability assessments, and strategic planning activities. This individual will develop demand-to-capacity models, evaluate manufacturing readiness, identify bottlenecks, and provide data-driven recommendations to support future growth.
Working closely with Operations, Manufacturing Engineering, Supply Chain, Quality, Finance, Facilities, Automation, and executive leadership, this role will ensure manufacturing capabilities align with business objectives while meeting safety, quality, cost, delivery, and capacity requirements.
Key Responsibilities
- Develop and maintain manufacturing capacity models at the site, process, equipment, and enterprise levels.
- Translate demand forecasts, product mix, cycle times, staffing plans, OEE, shift schedules, and downtime assumptions into capacity requirements and forecasts.
- Conduct manufacturing capability assessments across facilities, equipment, tooling, labor, processes, and infrastructure.
- Identify bottlenecks, capacity constraints, single points of failure, and operational risks across fabrication, assembly, testing, warehousing, and material handling operations.
- Create and evaluate scenarios involving production growth, product mix changes, labor strategies, equipment investments, outsourcing, insourcing, facility expansions, and new manufacturing sites.
- Establish and standardize methodologies for capacity planning, utilization modeling, OEE analysis, takt time calculations, staffing models, and constraint analysis.
- Perform line balancing, labor planning, throughput analysis, work-in-process analysis, and sensitivity studies.
- Develop recommendations for debottlenecking, capital investments, make-versus-buy decisions, automation opportunities, and manufacturing footprint optimization.
- Validate production assumptions through analysis of actual manufacturing performance and operational metrics.
- Build and maintain long-range capacity and capability roadmaps aligned with business growth plans and product introductions.
- Support capital planning for equipment, tooling, automation, facilities, utilities, and infrastructure investments.
- Proactively identify manufacturing risks and develop mitigation strategies related to capacity, labor availability, process limitations, equipment reliability, supplier constraints, and demand fluctuations.
What You'll Deliver
Capacity Planning
- Demand-to-capacity models across sites, product families, and production processes.
- Capacity analyses including rated, practical, demonstrated, and required capacity.
- Bottleneck identification and constraint analysis.
- Utilization, labor, shift, and OEE scenario planning.
- Capacity gap forecasts and phased expansion roadmaps.
Capability Assessment
- Manufacturing capability evaluations and gap analyses.
- Process, equipment, tooling, labor, quality, and infrastructure assessments.
- New product introduction and manufacturing readiness reviews.
- Site capability matrices and capability risk assessments.
- Validation and qualification planning for new capabilities.
Strategic Manufacturing Planning
- Productivity improvement and debottlenecking strategies.
- Equipment, automation, and line replication recommendations.
- Outsourcing, insourcing, overtime, and workforce planning scenarios.
- Greenfield, brownfield, and facility expansion analyses.
- Capital investment recommendations supported by business case analysis.
Execution & Validation
- Capacity model validation and continuous improvement.
- Post-investment performance verification.
- Throughput and bottleneck assessments.
- Actual-versus-planned performance analysis.
- Ongoing enhancement of capacity planning methodologies and models.
Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Industrial Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Operations Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
- Extensive experience in industrial engineering, manufacturing operations, capacity planning, or production system optimization within a manufacturing environment.
- Strong expertise in capacity modeling, facility planning, constraint analysis, line balancing, and manufacturing process improvement.
- Experience supporting large-scale manufacturing expansions, new facility launches, or network optimization initiatives.
- Advanced analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to translate complex data into actionable recommendations.
- Proven ability to influence cross-functional teams and senior leadership through data-driven decision making.
- Strong communication and presentation skills.
Travel Requirements
This position requires extensive travel, ranging from 90% to 100%, supporting manufacturing operations and project initiatives across multiple domestic and international locations. Potential travel destinations may include North America, South America, Asia, and Eastern Europe. Candidates must be comfortable working in a highly mobile, global manufacturing environment.
Why Join client?
- Join a rapidly growing organization supporting the critical data center infrastructure industry.
- Lead strategic manufacturing initiatives that directly impact company growth and operational scalability.
- Work on global projects involving new plants, capacity expansions, and advanced manufacturing technologies.
- Partner with executive leadership on high-visibility operational and investment decisions.
- Competitive compensation, comprehensive benefits, and significant long-term growth potential.