Manufacturing Integration Decision Architecture Director — Aerospace Systems

The mandate

The buyer governs production by programme and approved configuration, while the acquired company balances shared equipment through functional cells and local dispatch rules. Both achieve traceability, yet they disagree on freeze authority, supplier deviation, special-process release and recovery priority. Integration plans list applications and policies but omit the decisions that connect configuration evidence with physical flow and customer delivery.

The required output is a Manufacturing Integration Decision Architecture identifying retained, harmonised and transitional choices across demand translation, configuration, work release, material allocation, special processes, test, non-conformance, capacity and supplier recovery. It must preserve airworthiness and programme evidence while showing where common governance creates value and where technical or contractual difference remains necessary.

Week four accepts the decision and evidence atlas; week nine closes programme, regulatory and configuration constraints. Target choices reach approval at week fourteen, transition controls at week nineteen and five site paths at week twenty-four. Three cutover simulations conclude by week twenty-eight; the seventh milestone at week thirty delivers accepted architecture, implementation waves and residual-decision register.

Acceptance requires client owners to process ten unfamiliar disruptions across both legacy models, Configuration to trace every affected baseline and Quality to reperform transitional control evidence. The Integration Executive signs after a simulated supplier deviation and shared-test-cell loss are resolved without consultant mediation, unauthorised configuration movement or loss of contractual delivery visibility.

The client will provide acquisition principles, programme commitments, site and asset maps, configuration structures, routings, control plans, supplier records, capacity data, non-conformance flows, system constraints and named decision owners. The work excludes product design, airworthiness approval, live production command, ERP configuration, supplier award, workforce restructuring, synergy assurance and detailed implementation delivery.

Why this is external work

Legacy operating models each contain valid programme and technical logic, and internal leaders are already accountable for defending their current commitments. Independent architecture can reveal equivalent control purposes, necessary differences and safe transition states without granting one legacy organisation premature dominance or displacing formal aerospace approvals.

What you will own

• Catalogue manufacturing decisions from configured demand through work release, processing, test, non-conformance and customer delivery.
• Compare legacy evidence, timing, authority and consequence for every high-value or airworthiness-relevant decision.
• Define retained, harmonised and transitional states with entry criteria, fallback, expiry and named accountable owners.
• Sequence integration around programme freezes, supplier readiness, special-process approval, asset constraint and customer commitments.
• Specify readiness measures that reveal configuration and decision integrity rather than nominal policy adoption.
• Rehearse supplier deviation, test-cell loss, urgent configuration change, capacity conflict and controlled rollback.
• Deliver the decision atlas, target architecture, transition controls, wave plan, acceptance record and residual backlog.

Candidate qualifications

• Architected aerospace or defence-adjacent manufacturing integrations across multiple regulated production and test sites.
• Reconciled programme, functional and cell-based operating models without weakening configuration or airworthiness evidence.
• Designed transitional decision controls for special processes, non-conformance, supplier deviation and constrained assets.
• Understood physical production, configuration baselines, quality release and contractual delivery as one governed system.
• Challenged acquisition assumptions while protecting formal Engineering, Quality and programme accountabilities.
• Transferred complete integration design through client-run supplier, configuration and constrained-asset cases plus an evidenced rollback decision.

Non-negotiables

• Can lead nine site residencies and all three Toulouse-governed cutover simulations within seven months.
• Direct regulated aerospace manufacturing integration is required; systems integration alone is insufficient.
• Will disclose aerospace customers, manufacturers, suppliers, engineering houses and integration-advisory relationships.
• Will not approve airworthiness, change designs, command production, award suppliers, restructure teams or assure synergies.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe two aerospace operating models whose controls looked different but served the same purpose.
2. 49 words maximum. How did you preserve configuration integrity through a manufacturing integration cutover?
3. 49 words maximum. Which shared-asset disruption would you require before the architecture is accepted?