Senior Manager Knit Development (m/f/d) - Product Operations

Contenuto del lavoro

Purpose & Overall Relevance For The Organisation

This role is responsible for business service and process related product creation and providing effective transition of knit designs from prototyping to production. Maintaining strong relationships with the internal business units, adidas sourcing organization, vendors and other internal / external customers related to knitting technologies and business processes ensures aligned communication and allocation of products. Part of this role is to stay ahead on complex and innovative knit designs, technologies and work processes in regards of the physical or digital product creation process. The people and infrastructure management of the business service team and its needs is also part of this role.

Key Responsibilities

• Proactively research new customer service concepts and models to drive maintain and optimize a deep relationship with involved stakeholders to secure new potential team development options
• Ensure that new knit projects are engineered to cost, profitability targets, visual & functional demands, meet quality and test requirements.
• Prototyping and implementation of new & innovative knit designs, components, knitting methods, yarns and concepts into a manufacturable and marketable finished product
• Ensure that all knit components are fully tested to ensure adherence to Adidas quality and legal standards
• Take ownership for the entire customer service and process related development process for own team for assigned products or concepts with an emphasis on quality product development and timely completion of tasks in accordance with the applicable operating calendar
• Document achievements, trials, research and be able to train or educate others as required in a peer to peer or training workshop type environment
• Ensure and maintain technical/process and service skill level is kept high within team
• Translate designs into technical communication packages utilizing yarns, machine and post processing knowledge to achieve the functional or visual goal requested
• Be able to translate complex knit technical or process related matters into simple understandable explanations to enable efficient team decision making
• Collaborate with knitting suppliers to stay updated, further develop or optimize and improve service or process efficiencies or productivity gains for this technology
• Establish and maintain a strong working relationship with product owning business units and involved other organizations within the company (i.e. Materials, Design, Innovation, Sourcing or external T2 Suppliers)
• Own allocation communication alignment between all parties
• Support and guide Designers, Developers and other involved project team members in the product creation teams in all aspects of knit development or techniques
• Use state of the art communication tools to interact and collaborate with other stakeholders or peers to achieve set goals.
• Actively develop and maintain a platform for sharing expert business service and process knowledge within the knit technologies team and internal knit community to share and exchange efficiencies, knowledge to maintain an equal level of knit technical and design understanding within the teams
• As conflicts and escalations arise within projects, identify solutions and propose these to project sponsor and actively support their resolution in a timely and appropriate manner
• Ensure legal guidelines in regards to knit technologies are understood, followed and constantly kept up to date within team
• Drive own business service or business project for physical or digital process, system or technology optimization
  

People Management

• Build the appropriate structure to be able to manage the respective organization effectively, identify and develop the future talents and create realistic succession scenarios for key positions
• Ensure appropriate leadership skills are present at every level through creating a motivational and supportive work environment in which employees area coached, trained and provided with career opportunities through development.
• Allocate the different topics and work streams to the respective teams and employees considering experience, complexity, workload and organizational efficiency
• Continuously monitor and evaluate team workload and organizational efficiency with the support of systems, data and analysis and team or individual feedback and make appropriate changes in order to meet business needs.
• Provide team members/direct reports with clear direction and targets that are aligned with business needs and legal objectives.
• Maintain health and safety standards in machine areas and optimize, train and document appropriate needs and measures according to company or work association guidelines on a daily, regular and interval basis as required
  

Key Relationships

• Design, Inline Development, Pattern Engineering, Innovation Department, Materials Development, Supply, Quality, Costing, Product Creation Department, Logistics, Sourcing Organization, Marketing, T2 , T3, etc.
  

Knowledge, Skills And Abilities

• Ability to coach, guide and manage a (project) team
• Strong experience to work on several projects simultaneously
• Proactive (engaging & impact oriented) mindset, ability to think end to end
• Strong experience to manage complex projects on a global level
• Extensive experience with service or process development (weft knitting background beneficial)
• Broad knowledge about digital or physical work processes and customer service level management
• Manage and prioritize projects in an effective, timely and technical goal-oriented manner
• Technical training in footwear or apparel engineering and product development; industry experience
• State of the art computer literacy (Digital communication and documentation)
• Strong Communication and Presentation skills
• Fluent English language skills, German beneficial
• Exposure to the latest in materials, components, processes and concepts
• Able to network within company throughout various functions
• Ability to frequently travel, domestic or international, as required
  

Requisite Education And Experience / Minimum Qualifications

• University degree in technical textiles or equivalent
• Proven record of accomplishment in the field of footwear/apparel development preferred
• Minimum 7 years of related work experience in the footwear industry specialized in technologies or processes related to knit or other footwear technologies
• First experience in managing a team preferred