Solution Architect - Manufacturing Systems

Founded over 35 years ago, First Quality is a family-owned company that has grown from a small business in McElhattan, Pennsylvania into a group of companies, employing over 5,000 team members, while maintaining our family values and entrepreneurial spirit. With corporate offices in New York and Pennsylvania and 8 manufacturing campuses across the U.S. and Canada, the companies within the First Quality group produce high-quality personal care and household products for large retailers and healthcare organizations. Our personal care and household product portfolio includes baby diapers, wipes, feminine pads, paper towels, bath tissue, adult incontinence products, laundry detergents, fabric finishers, and dishwash solutions. In addition, we manufacture certain raw materials and components used in the manufacturing of these products, including flexible print and packaging solutions.

Guided by our values of humility, unity, and integrity, we leverage advanced technology and innovation to drive growth and create new opportunities. At First Quality , you’ll find a collaborative environment focused on continuous learning, professional development, and our mission to Make Things Better®.

We are seeking a Solution Architect – Manufacturing Systems for our First Quality Enterprises, LLC company. This position will be remote out of Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Georgia or Ohio. The IT Solution Architect - Manufacturing Systems, is responsible for the strategic planning, architecture, implementation, and continuous improvement of manufacturing technology solutions supporting production, quality, material handling automation, and related business operations. This role partners closely with business leaders, Centers of Excellence (COEs), Operations, Engineering, and IT teams to ensure technology investments align with business strategy while delivering secure, reliable, scalable, and supportable solutions. The Solution Architect provides technical leadership across the full solution lifecycle—from business requirements through design, implementation, operational support, and future roadmap planning.
Primary responsibilities include:
Business Partnership

- Serve as the primary IT advisor to Manufacturing, Quality, Warehousing, Logistics, and Automation business leaders.

- Develop trusted relationships with operational stakeholders.

- Translate business objectives into technology roadmaps and solution architectures.

- Facilitate strategic planning for 3–5-year technology initiatives.

People Manager

- Manage the assigned Solution Architects and their teams to foster cross domain collaboration, ensure alignment on end-to-end process flows, data models and integration points rather than optimizing only within their silos.

- Prioritize Skills Development and knowledge sharing across teams so team members stay current on both their specialized domains and the broader enterprise architecture, integration, and cloud/platform capabilities.

- Align individual and team objectives with measurable business outcomes and regularly review solution roadmaps against those outcomes.

- Complete all administrative tasks associated with people management with consistency and mindfulness.

Solution Architecture

- Lead architecture and design for manufacturing applications and integrations.

- Ensure solutions are scalable, resilient, secure, and maintainable.

- Develop and maintain architecture standards and reference models.

- Evaluate new technologies and recommend adoption where appropriate.

Manufacturing Systems

Provide technical leadership for systems including:

- Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES)

- Quality Management Systems

- Material Handling Automation

- Industrial data historians

- Shop floor data collection

- Equipment integrations

- Operational reporting and analytics

Project Leadership

- Support project teams during planning, design, implementation, and deployment.

- Review low level solution designs for compliance