Job Description:Title: Principal Process Architect, Supply Chain Center of Excellence
Location: Remote - US
Level: Principal (15+ years' experience)
RoleNextpower is building a scalable supply chain management system to improve customer reliability, simplify and standardize ways of working, and strengthen process- and data-driven decision making while staying agile through major system changes (e.g., ERP).
The Principal Process Architect designs the end-to-end operating architecture for supply chain - process standards, decision rights, controls, and governed variations - and ensures that improvements deliver measurable results. This is a role for a systems thinker who architects how the supply chain operates across Plan / Source / Deliver and key interfaces, not a transactional process documenter.
What you'll do- Architect end-to-end supply chain processes (Plan / Source / Deliver and key interfaces), making cross-functional handoffs, decision points, and constraints explicit, and driving simplification and repeatability at scale.
- Define and maintain global standards including process blueprints, standard work/SOPs, business rules, RACI/decision rights, escalation paths, and a pragmatic variation policy (what must be global, what can be configured, and what can vary locally) with clear rationale and governance.
- Establish objectives and priorities with stakeholders based on data-based ROI determinations and business objectives.
- Effectively facilitate problem identification, knowledge sharing and solutioning across complex stakeholder groups.
- Lead solution implementation and/ or identify resource needs to achieve objectives
- Design practical controls at critical points (e.g., promise/commit, allocation, master data touchpoints, quality holds, supplier escalation), specifying evidence expectations that are workable in real operations.
- Lead systemic defect elimination, driving root-cause problem solving across process, data, system, and behavior, and reducing dependence on workarounds via a managed workaround registry with owner, risk, expiry, and exit plan.
- Leverage analytics and AI tools to accelerate process mapping, root-cause analysis, and scenario design, multiplying the impact and speed of improvements.
- Partner with Data Governance to define process data requirements, KPI definitions, and data quality expectations that enable one version of the truth for decision making.
- Partner with IT to align process intent with system capabilities and to drive clear business rules and requirements (epics/stories, acceptance criteria) while minimizing unnecessary customization, especially on enterprise platforms (Oracle preferred).
- Measure outcomes and drive follow-through by defining success criteria and KPIs for adoption/compliance and performance impact, monitoring leading indicators, and coordinating corrective actions when targets aren't met.
- Manage a team of 3-5 process engineers and analysts (potential future scope).
- Drive a culture of continuous improvement.
What you'll bring (Minimum qualifications)- 15+ years in supply chain process design, operations excellence, or operating model roles in a global enterprise, with demonstrated end-to-end scope beyond a single function.
- Proven ability to build operating mechanisms (standards, decision rights, governance, controls, measures) that scale across regions and cross-functional teams.
- Strong systems thinking and trade-off management skills: able to optimize locally within enterprise standards and variation rules and to articulate downstream impacts and constraints.
- Experience working with enterprise platforms (Oracle preferred) and partnering with IT on process-to-system translation, including business rules, requirements, and acceptance criteria.
- High data fluency: understanding of master data, transaction flows, disciplined KPI definition, and practical data quality controls in an operational context.
- Executive-level influence and facilitation skills; able to align senior stakeholders without direct authority and coach teams toward consistent execution.
- Excellent organizational and project management skills, with a track record of identifying and resolving risks, issues, and dependencies and delivering initiatives on-time and on-budget.
- Experience leveraging AI, automation and desktop tools to increase individual productivity and as solution options.
What will set you apart (Preferred)- Lean/Six Sigma (or equivalent demonstrated practice).
- Background in high-growth or large-scale transformation environments, especially involving major ERP or operating model change.
- Experience with operating model design and implementation.
- Experience with formal change management methodology.
