Sr. SAP Solutions Architect (PP)

Position Summary

The Sr. SAP Solutions Analyst, Operations is a senior individual contributor responsible for the design, configuration, and continuous improvement of SAP solutions supporting ASP's manufacturing operations across two medical device production sites. Operating with a high degree of independence, this role applies specialized depth of expertise across SAP manufacturing and operations modules — including Production Planning (PP), process order management, Bill of Materials (BOM), recipe management, and Materials Management (MM) — combined with strong working knowledge of FICO integration and product costing, to interpret complex operational requirements, recommend best practices, and deliver solutions that drive efficiency, compliance, and financial accuracy across ASP's manufacturing functions.

This role partners closely with plant operations managers, supply chain leaders, finance teams, and quality stakeholders to ensure SAP solutions are aligned with manufacturing workflows, regulatory requirements, and business objectives. The Sr. SAP Solutions Analyst leads functional workstreams within projects of moderate-to-high complexity, acts as a subject matter expert for colleagues and business stakeholders, and contributes to the ongoing optimization of ASP's manufacturing systems landscape.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under limited supervision and in accordance with all applicable regulations and ASP policies, the duties and responsibilities of this position include:

Production Planning & Manufacturing Execution

• Production Planning (PP): Design, configure, and maintain SAP PP solutions supporting process and discrete manufacturing operations across ASP's two production sites, including MRP, production scheduling, capacity planning, work center management, and shop floor control.
• Process Order Management: Design and maintain process order configurations supporting ASP's manufacturing execution, including order creation, confirmation, goods issue, and goods receipt workflows — ensuring accurate reflection of manufacturing actuals in SAP.
• Bill of Materials (BOM): Develop, maintain, and govern Bill of Materials (BOM) structures across finished goods, semi-finished products, and raw materials, ensuring BOM accuracy, version control, and alignment with engineering and production requirements.
• Recipe Management (PP-PI): Configure and maintain SAP recipe management and master recipes within PP-PI (Production Planning for Process Industries), supporting batch manufacturing processes, material components, and process instructions relevant to ASP's medical device production environment.
• Planning Optimization: Analyze production planning outputs — including MRP results, planned orders, and capacity loads — to identify process gaps, recommend improvements, and work with operations teams to optimize planning parameters and scheduling efficiency.
• Operational Support: Support plant-level production scheduling processes, collaborating with production planners and operations managers to ensure SAP accurately reflects manufacturing realities and supports effective operational decision-making.

FICO Integration & Product Costing

• PP-FICO Integration: Apply strong working knowledge of SAP FICO integration with manufacturing modules to ensure accurate cost flow from production orders and process orders into financial accounting, including goods issue postings, activity confirmations, and order settlement.
• Product Costing (CO-PC): Support product costing processes within SAP, including cost estimate creation, costing runs, and standard cost updates — collaborating with finance teams to ensure manufacturing cost structures are accurately reflected in SAP CO-PC.
• Cost Center & Activity Costing: Understand and support cost center accounting and internal order settlement relevant to manufacturing operations, ensuring activity-based costing configurations align with ASP's manufacturing cost model.
• Variance Analysis: Collaborate with finance and controlling teams to interpret and resolve variances between planned and actual manufacturing costs, applying functional knowledge of SAP production order variance analysis and settlement workflows.
• Financial Reporting Accuracy: Ensure SAP configurations support accurate COGM (Cost of Goods Manufactured) and COGS (Cost of Goods Sold) reporting for ASP's manufacturing operations, partnering with finance to validate financial outputs from manufacturing transactions.

Materials Management, Warehouse Management & Supply Chain

• Materials Management (MM): Design and maintain SAP MM configurations supporting procurement, inventory management, goods movements, and material master data governance across ASP's manufacturing sites in Irvine, CA and Switzerland.
• Procure-to-Pay: Support end-to-end procure-to-pay processes in SAP, including purchase requisitions, purchase orders, goods receipts, and invoice verification, ensuring alignment with manufacturing material requirements.
• Inventory Management: Manage SAP inventory management configurations including storage locations, movement types, physical inventory, and material master data to ensure accurate and reliable inventory visibility across both production sites.
• Warehouse Management (WM/EWM): Configure and maintain SAP Warehouse Management (WM/EWM) solutions supporting warehouse operations at ASP's Irvine and Switzerland sites, including transfer orders, storage bin management, goods movements, and warehouse-to-production integration.
• EDI & 3PL Integration: Design, implement, and maintain EDI integrations with third-party logistics providers (3PLs), including outbound and inbound IDOC configuration for purchase orders, advance ship notices (ASNs), goods receipts, and inventory feeds — ensuring reliable, accurate data exchange between SAP and external logistics partners.
• 3PL Collaboration: Collaborate with supply chain, logistics, and 3PL partners to troubleshoot EDI transaction failures, map new message types, and optimize integration workflows that support ASP's global distribution and fulfillment operations.
• Supply Chain Collaboration: Collaborate with supply chain and procurement teams to interpret internal and external supply chain challenges and recommend SAP-based process improvements that improve material availability, warehouse efficiency, and logistics performance.

Quality Management

• Quality Management (QM): Support SAP Quality Management (QM) configurations relevant to manufacturing operations, including inspection plans, usage decisions, and quality notifications, ensuring alignment with ASP's quality management system and regulatory requirements.
• QM Integration: Collaborate with quality teams to ensure SAP QM integrates effectively with PP and MM processes, supporting inspection lot creation, results recording, and disposition workflows within manufacturing operations.

Cross-Functional Delivery & Stakeholder Engagement

• Project Leadership: Lead functional workstreams within SAP operations projects of moderate-to-high complexity, including requirements workshops, solution design, system testing, UAT coordination, and go-live support across both manufacturing sites.
• Proactive Improvement: Interpret internal and external business challenges — including regulatory changes, manufacturing process shifts, and cost management pressures — and proactively recommend SAP process or configuration improvements to address them.
• Technical Collaboration: Collaborate with SAP development, BASIS, FICO functional, and integration teams to ensure manufacturing solutions are technically sound, financially accurate, and operationally supportable.
• Stakeholder Communication: Communicate complex SAP functional concepts and solution designs clearly to both technical teams and non-technical manufacturing and finance stakeholders; negotiate approaches and build consensus across functions.
• Knowledge Sharing: Act as a subject matter expert and knowledge resource for colleagues with less experience; provide functional guidance, review solution designs, and support capability development within the operations team.

Operational Support & Documentation

• Functional Support: Provide expert-level functional support for SAP operations-related incidents and service requests, applying sophisticated analytical judgment to diagnose root causes and implement effective resolutions.
• Documentation & Compliance: Ensure all SAP configurations, process designs, and system changes are comprehensively documented in accordance with ASP's change management and validation requirements, including GxP documentation standards where applicable.
• Upgrade Support: Support SAP system upgrades, patch cycles, and S/4HANA migration activities as they relate to manufacturing and operations modules, ensuring business continuity and minimal operational disruption.
• Roadmap Awareness: Stay current on SAP S/4HANA manufacturing capabilities, including S/4HANA PP/DS, advanced recipe management, and embedded analytics for manufacturing, and recommend adoption of relevant enhancements that benefit ASP's operations.

RF & Mobility Integration 

• Radio Frequency (RF): Ideally possess hands-on experience with the implementation and support of RF (Radio Frequency) and barcode scanning technologies integrated with SAP Inventory Management (IM) and Warehouse Management (WM). 
• Mobility Integration: Have a proven track record of gathering mobility requirements, designing scanner-based solutions, and configuring RF devices to streamline material movements across the shop floor and warehouse.

Qualifications

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain Management, Industrial Engineering, Information Systems, Business Administration, or a related field required.
• Master's degree preferred.

Years of Related Experience

• 7+ years of hands-on SAP functional experience in manufacturing and operations modules, with demonstrated expertise in SAP PP, process order management, BOM, recipe management, MM, and warehouse management in a production environment.
• Demonstrated experience designing and maintaining EDI integrations with 3PL partners, including IDOC configuration and logistics data exchange in an SAP environment.
• Demonstrated working knowledge of SAP FICO integration with manufacturing modules, including product costing, cost center accounting, and production order settlement.
• Experience supporting manufacturing operations at multiple plant sites is strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated experience leading functional workstreams on SAP implementation, upgrade, or optimization projects of moderate-to-high complexity.
• Experience with SAP S/4HANA in a manufacturing context is strongly preferred.
• Experience in the Medical Device industry or a regulated manufacturing environment (FDA, GxP, ISO) is strongly preferred.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Specialized depth of expertise in SAP Production Planning (PP), including MRP, process orders, production orders, work centers, routings, capacity planning, and shop floor control.
• Strong functional knowledge of BOM management, including multi-level BOM structures, BOM versioning, and BOM integration with production and costing processes.
• Proficiency in SAP PP-PI recipe management, including master recipes, process instructions, material components, and batch manufacturing process design.
• Strong working knowledge of SAP MM, including procurement, inventory management, goods movements, and material master data governance.
• Working knowledge of SAP Warehouse Management (WM or EWM), including transfer order management, storage bin configuration, goods movements, and warehouse-to-production integration across multiple sites.
• Experience with EDI integration in SAP, including IDOC configuration, message types relevant to 3PL logistics (purchase orders, ASNs, goods receipts, inventory feeds), and troubleshooting of EDI transaction failures.
• Solid understanding of SAP FICO integration with manufacturing, including production order cost flows, product costing (CO-PC), activity-based costing, variance analysis, and order settlement.
• Familiarity with SAP Quality Management (QM) as it integrates with manufacturing and supply chain processes.
• Knowledge of GxP, FDA 21 CFR Part 11, and other regulatory requirements relevant to medical device manufacturing and their implications for SAP system design and validation.
• Ability to interpret complex operational and financial requirements, identify innovative SAP-based solutions, and communicate findings effectively to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills; able to apply sophisticated judgment to resolve complex functional issues independently.
• Effective cross-functional collaboration skills; able to engage credibly with plant operations managers, supply chain leaders, finance teams, and quality stakeholders.
• Familiarity with Agile/Scrum delivery methodologies and experience working within a sprint-based project delivery model.

Certifications (Preferred)

• SAP Certified Application Associate — SAP S/4HANA Manufacturing (Production Planning & Manufacturing) or equivalent.
• SAP Certified Application Associate — SAP S/4HANA Sourcing and Procurement or equivalent.
• APICS CPIM (Certified in Planning and Inventory Management) or CSCP (Certified Supply Chain Professional) is a plus.