cPLM External Manufacturing Data & Deployment Scientist (Project-based role)

Job Description

Mars is delivering a global Product Lifecycle Management transformation program (cPLM) to replace our existing process and system used to capture and evolve knowledge about our products. This role, cPLM External Manufacturing Data & Deployment Scientist (Project-based role), serves as the critical functional bridge between global External Manufacturing team and the cPLM team, securing the foundational data integrity of external manufacturing recipes before and during all FN site deployments. By driving hands-on system validation, enforcing data compliance standards, and directly enabling EMs, this position ensures that our external manufacturing recipes are digitized accurately and compliantly.

In this role, you will work closely with the Food Nutrition (FN) Scope Lead, the FN SMEs and FN cPLM leadership team. You will also occasionally need to collaborate with Enterprise POs, Corporate DT and other segment scope Leads. You will also need to engage with external partners including Co-Manufacturers, Co-Packers, and Supplier teams to ensure seamless deployment and capability building.

• Location: Oud-Beijerland, South Holland, Netherlands
• Based country: UK or Netherlands
• Category: R&D

This is a project-role for the Food cPLM program. The role is funded through June 2028. As we approach the funding end date, your manager will be in touch with additional information including funding for next phases, including pilot and deployment.

External Manufacturing Discovery

• Support External Manufacturing Discovery & Scoping: Participate in discovery workshops with External Manufacturing, Commercial, Product Development and other functions. Capture, consolidate and translate requirements from FN and share with the enterprise team.
• Provide Day-to-Day Functional Suppor: Act as the primary functional point of contact for External Manufacturing, Commercial leads, and external supplier technical contacts to troubleshoot process, system or data issues.
• Triage & Issue Resolution: Rapidly diagnose and categorize user inquiries from external and internal co-manufacturing stakeholders, resolving functional "how-to" questions and partnering with technical teams for bug resolution.
• Coordinate External Deployment Readiness: Drive EM site specific deployment checklists, ensuring external partners and internal co-man data teams complete legacy data cleansing, access setup, and onboarding activities prior to go-live.

External Manufacturing Data Quality, Governance & Compliance

• Audit External Manufacturing Legacy Data Readiness: Conduct rigorous audits on legacy external manufacturing specifications, recipe structures, and packaging records, identifying missing, obsolete, or non-compliant attributes prior to cPLM migration.
• Remediate Data Gaps & Enrich External Specs: Directly assist internal external-manufacturing teams and external suppliers in gathering missing technical parameters, filling data gaps, and enriching specification records for seamless ingestion.
• Enforce Global Standardization & Governance: Partner with global data stewards to enforce strict naming, classification, and taxonomy rules across all external supplier records, proactively identifying unauthorized workarounds or process deviations.

Testing and Continuous Improvement

• Validate External Bill of Materials (BOM) & Specifications: Build, configure, and validate raw material, recipe, packaging, and trade item specifications for external manufacturing streams in test environments to verify accurate data flows.
• Execute End-to-End Testing (UAT) for External Scenarios: Support User Acceptance Testing (UAT) by following test scripts, logging defects, and providing feedback on system KPIs.
• Support FN Pilot and Future Deployments: Support the initial pilot deployment and subsequent Food Nutrition site deployments by establishing reusable templates, checklists, and gathering learning for continuous improvement.
• Drive Process & Interface Optimizations – long term: Analyze support ticket trends, supplier onboarding bottlenecks, and partner feedback to propose proactive improvements to external data exchange templates, workflows, and guidelines.

External Partner Enablement, Support & Community Engagement

• Design & Deliver Targeted Partner Training: Partner with enterprise change and training leads to create and deliver role-based training, interactive demos, and step-by-step guides for external partners and internal co-man teams.
• Lead On-Site and/or Virtual Hypercare for External Go-Lives: Act as the dedicated hypercare lead during external manufacturing deployment waves, working shoulder-to-shoulder with our technical teams to resolve any issues.
• Prepare Stakeholder Communications: Translate deployment milestones, system release updates, and risk escalations into concise, impact-oriented summaries for External Manufacturing and R&D leadership.

As the program evolves, your responsibilities may need to shift to support the team where needed most.