OT Manager – Manufacturing IT & Digital Operations

Position: OT Manager – Manufacturing IT & Digital Operations. Location: Dubai, UAE. Department: IT (Operational Technology). Reports to: Head of IT. About the Role: We are looking for an OT Manager to join our client's team in Dubai. You will own the technology that runs their factory — the single point of accountability where IT meets manufacturing. You will lead the architecture, delivery, availability, security and continuous improvement of their full operational technology landscape: MSD 365 F&O manufacturing and warehouse execution, MES, CAD/CAM and engineering data flow, machine connectivity and data acquisition, integration, shopfloor infrastructure and production analytics. Success is measured in uptime, data integrity, on-time delivery, yield, throughput and cost per unit – not tickets closed. Key Responsibilities: Strategy & architecture: Define the OT strategy, target architecture and multi-year roadmap aligned to production growth, new lines and automation. Act as design authority across MSD 365 F&O, MES, CAD/CAM, advanced warehouse management, machine layer and analytics, aligned to ISA-95 and the Purdue model. Delivery leadership: Lead OT projects end to end – scope, design, budget, testing, cutover and hypercare. Own go-live readiness and chair change advisory for production systems. Process ownership: Govern production order, advanced manufacturing, WIP control, advanced warehouse management, outbound/dispatch and design-to-machine flows as integrated end-to-end processes, partnering with Production, Planning, Design, Quality, Warehouse, Maintenance, Procurement and Finance. Integration & data: Own the integration touchpoint inventory across CAD/CAM, MSD 365 F&O, MES, nesting, machine layer, RF/WMS, label printing, transport/3PL, maintenance and Power BI. Own the production KPI library and single source of truth for OEE, downtime, cycle time, throughput, yield, scrap, WIP aging and OTIF. Operations & availability: Define SLAs/OLAs, multi-shift support and on-call; own incident, problem and major incident management to permanent fix. Own OT business continuity and disaster recovery, including tested restore and documented manual fallback. OT security & compliance: Own OT cybersecurity with Corporate InfoSec, aligned to IEC 62443 and NIST CSF — asset inventory, segmentation and zoning, firewall governance, secure vendor remote access, privileged access management, hardening and industrial patching. Maintain the OT risk register and audit readiness (ISO 9001/14001/45001). Team, vendor & budget: Build and develop the OT team with skill matrices and career paths. Own vendor relationships with machine OEMs, MES, CAD/CAM and ERP partners – RFP, SOW, acceptance criteria, SLA enforcement. Own the OT OPEX/CAPEX budget and benefit realisation. Qualifications & Experience: Mandatory: Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, IT, Industrial or Automation Engineering. Postgraduate qualification or MBA an advantage. 10+ years in manufacturing IT, OT or digital manufacturing, including 3+ years leading a team and owning delivery of production-critical systems. Proven end-to-end ownership of at least one MES or shopfloor digitalization implementation, from design through go-live to steady state, in a discrete or engineer-to-order environment. Strong command of the production order process, advanced manufacturing, WIP control, advanced warehouse management and outbound/dispatch in an ERP context; MSD 365 F&O strongly preferred. Demonstrated machine connectivity and shopfloor data acquisition across multiple machine types and vendors, including industrial protocols and edge/gateway architectures. Solid integration architecture experience across ERP, MES, CAD/CAM and warehouse systems, including error handling and reconciliation design. Practical OT network and security knowledge, plus backup and disaster recovery for OT assets. Demonstrated vendor management, budget ownership and senior stakeholder management. Excellent English communication with both shopfloor supervisors and leadership. Preferred: Woodworking, furniture, panel processing or engineer-to-order interiors background, with HOMAG, Biesse, SCM or IMA and CAD+T or imos exposure. High-mix, project-driven manufacturing with unit-wise kitting, phased delivery and site installation dependencies. Greenfield or major factory expansion experience. Exposure to PLM, APS, CMMS/EAM, quality management systems and transport platforms. Azure integration and data services, Power BI at scale. Certifications: PMP or PRINCE2, ITIL, Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, IEC 62443 or GICSP, Lean Six Sigma, TOGAF. GCC or UAE manufacturing experience.