Factory Data Architect - IT

About the Role

Flex is a global manufacturing partner that helps leading brands design and deliver innovative products. This position offers a chance to contribute to advanced factory systems within an inclusive and collaborative environment. The Factory Data Architect will drive the strategic framework and governance for Factory Information Architecture as part of Flex's Future Factory ecosystem in Chennai, India.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain the overarching strategy, standards, governance models, and future roadmap for Factory Information Architecture.
• Define and govern the physical location hierarchies within factories, including all levels from buildings to equipment and assets.
• Manage the logical factory structures encompassing business units, customers, programs, sites, and related core entities.
• Create unified information models, identifiers, hierarchies, metadata frameworks, and semantic relationships linking physical and logical structures.
• Specify requirements for systems such as data catalogs, business glossaries, metadata repositories, and schema registries that support manufacturing data standards.
• Collaborate with Enterprise IT and Factory Integration teams to align naming conventions, payload configurations, data contracts, and vocabularies with enterprise standards.
• Outline how manufacturing data should be mapped, transformed, validated, enriched, and contextualized across factory and enterprise platforms.
• Set governance rules for schema validation, including version control, attribute requirements, quality checks, semantic adherence, exception processing, and monitoring.
• Oversee Unified Namespace structures and contextual models ensuring consistency with approved schemas and information policies.
• Establish foundational data models to underpin Digital Twin technology, Knowledge Graphs, analytics, and AI applications.
• Lead architecture review sessions and governance bodies to enforce adoption and uniform implementation across teams.

Required Qualifications and Experience

• Possess a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Architecture, Industrial or Manufacturing Engineering, or a related field.
• At least 10 years of experience in data, enterprise, or manufacturing systems architecture, particularly in complex global or multi-factory contexts.
• Proficiency in information modeling, metadata management, business and asset hierarchies, semantic standards, master/reference data, data cataloging, and governance frameworks.
• Expertise in defining schema governance, data validation rules, contracts, transformations, quality controls, and compliance workflows.
• Familiarity with MES, ERP, SCADA, operational technology, equipment connectivity, quality management, maintenance, inventory, and engineering processes relevant to manufacturing.
• Working knowledge of technologies like MQTT, event streaming, APIs, ETL/ELT processes, schema registries, cloud data platforms, Knowledge Graphs, Digital Twins, and semantic tools to guide implementations effectively.
• Strong skills in stakeholder engagement, communication, facilitation, and decision-making, with the ability to influence diverse global teams.

Benefits and Additional Information

• Health insurance coverage
• Paid time off (PTO)

Diversity and Inclusion

Flex is committed to equal opportunity employment, not discriminating on bases such as age, race, religion, gender, or disability. Reasonable accommodations are available for applicants with disabilities upon request during the application process.