Assoc. Dir, External Manufacturing, Technical Product Management
Verona Pharma
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Assoc. Dir, External Manufacturing, Technical Product Management (SCM)
The Opportunity
Our Technology Centers focus on creating a space where teams can come together to deliver business solutions that save and improve lives. An integral part of our companys’ IT operating model, Tech Centers are globally distributed locations where each IT division has employees to enable our digital transformation journey and drive business outcomes. These locations, in addition to the other sites, are essential to supporting our business and strategy.
A focused group of leaders in each Tech Center helps to ensure we can manage and improve each location, from investing in growth, success, and well-being of our people, to making sure colleagues from each IT division feel a sense of belonging to managing critical emergencies. And together, we must leverage the strength of our team to collaborate globally to optimize connections and share best practices across the Tech Centers.
Role Overview:
Our Company is seeking an energetic, forward-thinking Associate Director to play a pivotal role on our Supply Chain Planning and External Manufacturing Team.
In this high-impact position, you’ll lead integration of cutting-edge integration solutions, drive digital execution and delivery that elevates end-to-end supply chain visibility across our internal operations and external partners (CMOs, CDMOs, suppliers).
You’ll leverage your hands-on experience connecting critical supply chain data from Contract Manufacturing Organizations, platforms to build robust, scalable integration capabilities enabling our External Manufacturing business to deliver for our patients.
Drawing on your deep understanding of life sciences supply chain, manufacturing, and quality processes, you will enable seamless data flow that powers best-in-class planning and analytics tools—turning partner data into actionable insights that directly support smarter, faster, and more resilient decision-making that minimizes risk.
What will you do in this role
Digital Innovation, Technical Integration & Solution Design
Help drive CMO integration platform evolution and strategy ensuring continuous evolution, capability build and implement best in class SC collaboration capabilities that are scalable
Provide line of site and technical expertise into advancing technology integration in the Life Science and CMO/CDMO space in relation to Supply Chain
Lead delivery and value attainment for Supply Chain integrations across our CMO landscape and continue to evolve with suppliers over time.
Translate business and supply chain requirements into technical integration designs with Contract Manufacturing partners:
Data flows between CMOs and SAP (e.g., purchase orders, production orders, inventory, goods movements, IDocs) Quality systems (e.g., batch release status, CoAs, deviations) Kinaxis (e.g., demand, supply, inventory, capacity, lead times) leveraging SAP Business Network (or other integration platforms (Tracelink, E2Open, OneNetwork)
Lead design for: Integration patterns (APIs, EDI, IDoc, file-based, message queues, B2B gateways, etc.). Data models, mapping, and transformations. Error handling, exception management, and monitoring.
Collaborate across technical teams, product lines and enterprise/solution architects to ensure alignment to reference architectures and data standards.
Translate business outcomes to technical requirements into integration and data solutions; ensure data accuracy, timeliness, and context (e.g., batch/lot, yield, mfg milestones, other data points of manufacturing process).
Ensure performance, availability, and scalability of the integrations.
Stakeholder & Partner Management
Work closely with: Supply Chain, External Manufacturing, Quality and Planning functions teams
Partner/CMO IT counterparts and vendors
Contribute to workshops to define requirements, map processes, and align on data ownership.
Communicate status, risks, and decisions to business and IT leadership.
Manage vendor/SI deliverables and ensure alignment to technical expectations.
Operations & Continuous Improvement
Define support model and handover to operations / run teams.
Identify and implement opportunities to standardize and reuse integration patterns across CMOs.
Develop and maintain dashboards and KPI frameworks for end-to-end visibility performance and value realization (automation, cycle times measures).
Tooling & Technology
Configure and optimize best-in-class tools for planning, visibility, and analytics (e.g., SAP BN/Kinaxis/Blue Yonder; ERP such as SAP S/4 or Oracle; BI like Power BI/Tableau; data platforms like Snowflake/Databricks).
Define and maintain integration models, blueprints, data models, master data governance, Understand SC metrics integration, across ERP, LIMS, MES, and Veeva/Quality systems.
Contribute to technology selection, proofs-of-concept, and automation/alerting for exception-driven workflows.
What should you have
Education
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, Supply Chain, or related field (or relevant experience).
Experience
Proven experience 10+ years as a Technical Delivery Lead, Integration Lead, or Solution Lead in: SAP-centric Supply Chain or Manufacturing environments. Large-scale B2B / external partner integrations.
Preferred delivery in one or more of: SAP Business Network, SAP ECC or S/4HANA (MM, PP, SD, WM/EWM, or similar modules).
Hands‑on leadership of projects involving CMOs / external manufacturing partners.
Strong understanding of manufacturing and supply chain business process, business process mapping with both internal and external organizations
Primary Skills (Conceptual / Hands-on Awareness)
Integration technologies and patterns: APIs (REST/SOAP), EDI, IDocs, flat-file interfaces, BTP, middleware/iPaaS (e.g., PI/PO, CPI, MuleSoft, Boomi, etc.).
Understanding of: SAP integration capabilities (IDoc, BAPI, OData, etc.).Data structures relevant to supply chain and external manufacturing.
Experience in planning system data models (supply, demand, BOMs, routings, lead times, calendars).
Support GxP System Development: activities: Requirements, design specs, test plans, and execution.
Enforce standards for documentation, code quality, and change control defined by System Development Life Cycle.
Good understanding and thought leadership of the technology tools and capabilities to support supply chain collaboration between Life Science Product owners and Contract Manufacturing organizations
Support technical delivery roadmap for external partner integrations (CMOs, 3PLs, packaging sites, etc.).
Soft Skills
Strong leadership and influencing skills in a matrix environment. Ability to translate between business language and technical details. Excellent communication (written, verbal, and presentation).
Strong problem‑solving and decision‑making skills. Comfortable working across time zones with global stakeholders.
Secondary Skills
Support planning and execution of integration projects from concept through hyper care through key integration platforms such as SAP Business Network, Kinaxis, OneNetwork and Tracelink.
Manage and coordinate cross‑functional teams (internal IT, external vendors, partner IT, business process owners).
Define and manage project scope, timelines, risks, issues, and dependencies.
Drive cutover planning, data migration (if needed), and go‑live readiness.
Good understanding of End‑to‑end supply chain processes (Plan–Source–Make–Deliver).
External/Contract Manufacturing operating models and data flows.
Planning systems experience ideally Kinaxis Maestro (or other APS tools like OMP, SAP IBP, etc.).
Primary Skills : Technical Integrations SCM, SAP, Supply chain Technical Lead.
Our technology teams operate as business partners, proposing ideas and innovative solutions that enable new organizational capabilities. We collaborate internationally to deliver services and solutions that help everyone be more productive and enable innovation.
Who we are
We are known as Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, New Jersey, USA in the United States and Canada and MSD everywhere else. For more than a century, we have been inventing, bringing forward medicines and vaccines for many of the world's most challenging diseases. Today, our company continues to be at the forefront of research to deliver innovative health solutions and advance the prevention and treatment of diseases that threaten people and animals around the world.
What we look for
Imagine getting up in the morning for a job as important as helping to save and improve lives around the world. Here, you have that opportunity. You can put your empathy, creativity, digital mastery, or scientific genius to work in collaboration with a diverse group of colleagues who pursue and bring hope to countless people who are battling some of the most challenging diseases of our time. Our team is constantly evolving, so if you are among the intellectually curious, join us—and start making your impact today.
#HYDIT2025
Required Skills:
Asset Management, Benefits Management, Business Processes, Business Process Modeling, Computer Science, Management System Development, Manufacturing Processes, Process Manufacturing, Product Management, Project Integration, Requirements Management, Risk Minimization, SAP BusinessObjects Data Integrator, SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), Stakeholder Relationship Management, Strategic Planning, Supply Chain Collaboration, Supply Change Management, System Designs, Technical Integrations, Technical Interpretation, Technology IntegrationsPreferred Skills:
Current Employees apply HERE
Current Contingent Workers apply HERE
Search Firm Representatives Please Read Carefully
Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, Rahway, NJ, USA, does not accept unsolicited assistance from search firms for employment opportunities. All CVs / resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at our company without a valid written search agreement in place for this position will be deemed the sole property of our company. No fee will be paid in the event a candidate is hired by our company as a result of an agency referral where no pre-existing agreement is in place. Where agency agreements are in place, introductions are position specific. Please, no phone calls or emails.
Employee Status:
RegularRelocation:
VISA Sponsorship:
Travel Requirements:
Flexible Work Arrangements:
HybridShift:
Valid Driving License:
Hazardous Material(s):
Job Posting End Date:
05/21/2026*A job posting is effective until 11:59:59PM on the day BEFORE the listed job posting end date. Please ensure you apply to a job posting no later than the day BEFORE the job posting end date.
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Small molecules for respiratory indications
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