Sr Director, Sustaining Center and Capacity Planning

Purpose and Scope

The Head of Sustaining Center for Value Stream Dialyzer and Capacity Planning (VSD) for In-Center holds two critical global leadership mandates: Lead Sustaining Engineering and post-launch product lifecycle management for the €1.2B Value Stream Dialyzers business; Lead integrated capacity planning and capacity strategy for the €4B In-Center business unit.

For VSD, the position protects business continuity, product compliance, customer supply, manufacturing performance, and lifecycle competitiveness across the global Dialyzer portfolio. For In-Center, the position establishes the global capacity-planning framework and translates commercial demand, portfolio strategy, regional growth, and technology roadmaps into capacity scenarios, investment priorities, and manufacturing-network recommendations.

Strategic Business Impact

• Protect €1.2B in annual VSD revenue by safeguarding product availability, regulatory compliance, manufacturing continuity, and post-launch performance.
• Lead capacity planning for the €4B In-Center business, ensuring timely capacity availability to support growth, portfolio transitions, and customer demand.
• Own the global Dialyzer portfolio after launch, including reliability, compliance, manufacturability, supply resilience, cost competitiveness, and lifecycle value.
• Define and authorize VSD sustaining priorities, including critical product, process, material, supplier, quality, and manufacturing changes.
• Develop and recommend In-Center capacity assumptions and scenarios and major capacity, technology, and manufacturing-network investments.
• Authorize business-continuity actions when supply, quality, regulatory, supplier, or manufacturing risks threaten business performance.
• Drive structural productivity and cost improvement across the established Dialyzer portfolio and manufacturing network.
• Build and lead global organizations with strong engineering, analytical, financial, and strategic planning capabilities.

Principal Duties and Responsibilities

VSD Sustaining Engineering and Lifecycle Leadership

• Define, approve, and lead the global Sustaining Engineering strategy for Value Stream Dialyzers.
• Hold executive accountability for the performance and continuity of the Dialyzer portfolio following commercial launch.
• Authorize and prioritize product, process, material, supplier, quality, regulatory, and manufacturing changes based on patient, business, compliance, and supply impact.
• Lead the transition of newly launched products into stable, scalable, and cost-effective lifecycle management.
• Approve lifecycle roadmaps and recommendations for product extension, redesign, transfer, rationalization, hold, or discontinuation.
• Anticipate and mitigate lifecycle risks, including obsolescence, material discontinuation, supplier dependency, quality trends, and evolving regulatory requirements.
• Serve as the executive escalation and decision authority for critical sustaining issues within the position’s mandate.

VSD Business Continuity and Competitiveness

• Authorize cross-functional response programs where supplier, material, quality, regulatory, capacity, or manufacturing risks threaten customer supply.
• Approve mitigation priorities, contingency measures, and resource deployment within delegated authority.
• Establish governance and executive visibility for material business-continuity risks.
• Define and approve the VSD productivity and lifecycle competitiveness roadmap.
• Lead initiatives in automation, yield improvement, process optimization, design-to-value, material cost reduction, standardization, and complexity reduction.
• Hold teams accountable for measurable improvements in supply reliability, cost, margin, quality, and lifecycle performance.

In-Center Capacity Planning, Investment and Manufacturing-Network Strategy

• Define, lead, and institutionalize the integrated capacity-planning and manufacturing-network strategy for the €4B In-Center business.
• Translate market demand, commercial ambitions, portfolio roadmaps, regional growth, and technology strategies into long-term capacity requirements and investment priorities.
• Establish a transparent global view of demand, effective capacity, utilization, constraints, replacement needs, and investment timing; approve planning assumptions, methodologies, and capacity scenarios before presentation to In-Center leadership.
• Challenge demand and supply assumptions, identify future constraints early, and recommend capacity-allocation priorities during constrained-supply situations.
• Lead the evaluation of strategic alternatives, including existing-site expansion, new or replacement lines, technology and product conversions, automation, product transfers, regional manufacturing options, internal versus external manufacturing, and site consolidation or repositioning.
• Ensure decisions reflect total business economics, including capital, production and logistics costs, market access, regulatory complexity, resilience, implementation timing, and scalability.
• Advise senior leadership on investment prioritization and maintain executive oversight to ensure approved investments deliver committed capacity, cost, timing, and business outcomes.
• Direct and develop business cases (~ 100M Euro Capex one production dialyzer line) of new production line by leading cross-functional organizations.

Executive Governance and Cross-Functional Leadership

• Serve as a member of the VSD Leadership Team, contributing to business strategy, portfolio direction, financial planning, and organizational priorities.
• Represent VSD and In-Center in relevant sustaining, capacity, and investment governance forums.
• Chair or sponsor global governance for VSD sustaining and In-Center capacity planning.
• Lead alignment across Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Product Management, R&D, Quality, Regulatory, Procurement, Finance, Commercial, and Digital.
• Resolve cross-functional, cross-site, and cross-regional prioritization conflicts within the position’s mandate.
• Ensure executive decisions are translated into clear accountability, funding, milestones, and measurable outcomes.

Organization, People and Financial Leadership

• Design and lead the global VSD Sustaining Center and In-Center Capacity Planning organization.
• Lead senior managers, Sustaining Center leaders, capacity-planning leaders, technical experts, business managers, and analysts.
• Approve organizational structures, workforce plans, capability requirements, and succession priorities in alignment with HR governance.
• Own budgets and resource plans and approve expenditures within delegated authority.
• Set performance expectations and hold leaders accountable for business, financial, quality, technical, and organizational outcomes.
• Build a high-performance culture centered on accountability, speed, collaboration, transparency, and enterprise value creation.
• Sponsor digital tools and analytics that strengthen lifecycle, capacity, investment, and risk-based decision-making.

Decision Authority

Subject to FME’s delegation of authority, Quality Management System, and applicable governance requirements, the position will:

• For VSD: Approve global Sustaining Engineering priorities and portfolio sequencing.
• For VSD: Authorize major product, process, material, supplier, and manufacturing change programs.
• For VSD: Approve sustaining budgets and resource allocation within delegated authority.
• For VSD: Authorize supply-continuity and risk-mitigation actions.
• For VSD: Approve or endorse major Dialyzer lifecycle decisions.
• For VSD: Stop, redirect, or escalate programs not meeting approved business, quality, regulatory, financial, or delivery requirements.
• For In-Center: Recommend global capacity-planning assumptions, methodologies, and scenarios.
• For In-Center: Authorize development of strategic capacity and investment business cases.
• For In-Center: Recommend major CAPEX, capacity expansion, technology transfer, product transfer, and manufacturing-footprint decisions.
• For In-Center: Challenge and validate demand, utilization, timing, and investment assumptions.
• For In-Center: Resolve or escalate cross-portfolio and cross-site capacity conflicts.
• For In-Center: Represent In-Center in capacity, investment, and manufacturing-network reviews.

Physical Demands and Working Conditions

Requires travel both domestic and international travel, up to 25%.

Supervision

Will be responsible for a global team of up to 20 staff members including managerial level staff.

Education, Experience and Required Skills

• Master’s degree in engineering, Natural Sciences, Operations, Supply Chain, Finance, Business Administration, or a related discipline; MBA or equivalent advanced qualification preferred.
• Minimum 15+ years of progressive leadership experience in a global, regulated, and technology-driven organization.
• Significant leadership experience in Sustaining Engineering, Product Lifecycle Management, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Capacity Strategy, Operations, R&D, or Finance.
• Proven experience leading senior managers and geographically distributed, multidisciplinary organizations.
• Demonstrated accountability for major portfolios, capacity strategies, business-continuity programs, budgets, or manufacturing networks.
• Strong record of developing CAPEX proposals and influencing senior investment decisions.
• Demonstrated ability to manage complex supplier, quality, regulatory, manufacturing, and capacity risks.
• Strong commercial judgment, financial acumen, strategic thinking, and executive decision-making capability.
• Ability to influence beyond direct reporting lines and align senior stakeholders across functions, sites, and regions.
• Courage to make, communicate, and defend difficult decisions.
• Fluent business English and willingness to travel internationally.