Location: Lafayette, IN (on-site 5 days a week) Years of experience required: 7-20 years Overview Seeking a full-stack Industry 4.0 contractor to help accelerate our journey to connect manufacturing equipment, collect and structure machine and process data, and convert that data into actionable, decision-ready insights. This role bridges OT/IT connectivity, data engineering, and manufacturing analytics, partnering closely with manufacturing engineering, operations, controls/IT-OT, and transformation teams. The contractor will focus on rapid enablement, practical solutions, and creating repeatable patterns that scale across assets and facilities. Key Responsibilities Machine Connectivity & Data Acquisition • Enable and support connections to manufacturing equipment, sensors, and digital sources in collaboration with controls and IT/OT teams. • Support secure and reliable data collection from machines and systems used in manufacturing operations. • Validate data availability, frequency, signal quality, and basic health of connected assets. Data Engineering & Pipeline Development • Structure, normalize, and prepare machine and operational data so it is usable for analytics and reporting. • Implement pragmatic data pipelines that support near-real-time and historical analysis (tool-agnostic, fit-for-purpose). • Document data definitions, assumptions, and limitations to enable sustainment and scale. Analytics, Reporting & Insights • Develop dashboards, reports, and analytical views that translate raw data into clear operational insights and recommended actions. • Support reporting workflows that may include structured exports (e.g., CSV) and Power BI-style dashboards depending on maturity and use case. • Identify trends, exceptions, thresholds, and opportunities related to safety, quality, throughput, utilization, or reliability. Operational Integration & Actionability • Support or lead regular reviews of data insights with plant stakeholders to ensure insights turn into actions with owners and follow-up. • Partner with manufacturing engineering, operations, EHS, quality, and IT/OT to ensure analytics align with real shop-floor decisions. • Contribute to development of repeatable deployment patterns and best practices that can be reused across sites. Deliverables (Contract-Oriented) • Connected asset and data source inventory with signal definitions and data quality notes. • Initial analytics package (dashboards and/or reports) tied to specific, agreed-upon operational questions. • Documented data pipeline and reporting approach suitable for handoff or replication. • Established cadence for insight review and action tracking with plant stakeholders. Required Skills & Experience • Hands-on experience connecting or working with manufacturing equipment data, telemetry, or IIoT sources. • Strong ability to transform raw machine/process data into actionable insights, not just dashboards. • Experience with data analysis and visualization tools used in manufacturing or industrial contexts. • Comfort working across OT, IT, engineering, and operations in a plant environment. • Proven ability to operate independently in a contract role with minimal direction. Preferred / Nice-to-Have Experience • Exposure to reliability, asset performance, predictive maintenance, or process monitoring use cases. • Familiarity with structured deployment playbooks, continuous-improvement cadences, and sustainment models.