Senior Business Analyst (Manufacturing & Production)

Work Location: St Louis, MO.- Onsite

Duration : 12 months
Experience: 7–10+ years of relevant experience

Role Overview

We are looking for a Senior Business Analyst with strong knowledge of manufacturing operations and production processes to work directly from Ariel Premium's client location. The candidate will be dedicated to the Ariel 4 project and will work closely with production teams, shop-floor personnel, operational stakeholders, and the technical delivery team.

The ideal candidate must understand how a manufacturing facility operates in practice, including production planning, work orders, material availability, inventory consumption, shop-floor execution, quality checks, production tracking, and finished-goods handling.

The candidate must be able to understand existing production workflows, identify operational challenges, gather detailed business requirements, and translate them into clear functional specifications for the development team. This role requires practical manufacturing-domain knowledge rather than business analysis experience limited to IT requirements documentation.

Key Responsibilities

1. Manufacturing & Production Process Analysis

• Develop a detailed understanding of client's production processes, manufacturing workflows, and shop-floor operations.
• Work directly with production managers, supervisors, operators, and other operational stakeholders to understand how manufacturing activities are performed.
• Understand production planning and scheduling, work orders, material requirements, raw material availability, material consumption, work-in-progress, and finished-goods management.
• Analyse production workflows, including job allocation, work-centre operations, production status tracking, quality inspections, rework, wastage, and production completion, as applicable to the client's operations.
• Document current production processes, business rules, operational exceptions, dependencies, and bottlenecks.
• Identify opportunities to improve production efficiency, traceability, resource utilisation, and process standardisation.

2. Business Requirements & Functional Specifications

• Conduct on-site discussions and process walkthroughs to gather production-related requirements.
• Prepare AS-IS and TO-BE process flows, functional specifications, user stories, business rules, and acceptance criteria.
• Translate shop-floor and production requirements into clear, actionable specifications for developers and QA engineers.
• Analyse gaps between existing production practices and the proposed system functionality.
• Clarify requirements with business stakeholders and independently resolve functional queries.
• Assess the operational impact of proposed changes and ensure requirements reflect actual manufacturing practices.

• Analyse how production activities, material movements, inventory updates, work orders, and operational data should be represented and managed within the application.
• Validate functional workflows against real production scenarios, including exceptions and edge cases.
• Collaborate with the development team to ensure that implemented functionality supports actual shop-floor requirements.
• Maintain consistency between approved business requirements, functional specifications, and delivered features.

4. Shop-Floor Stakeholder Coordination

• Work on-site and engage regularly with production personnel to understand operational practices firsthand.
• Observe actual workflows where required rather than relying solely on verbal explanations.
• Act as the primary functional bridge between manufacturing stakeholders and the technical team.
• Facilitate requirement reviews, clarify business rules, and communicate changes, risks, and dependencies.
• Support effective coordination between client-side operational teams and distributed development and QA teams.

Mandatory Skills & Experience

• 7–10+ years of relevant experience in business analysis, manufacturing process analysis, production operations, or manufacturing system implementation.
• Strong practical understanding of manufacturing and production processes, preferably gained through direct exposure to a manufacturing facility or shop floor.
• Knowledge of production planning, work orders, material requirements, inventory consumption, work-in-progress, quality control, and finished-goods processes.
• Ability to understand complex production workflows and translate them into detailed functional requirements.
• Experience conducting process walkthroughs, documenting business rules, performing gap analysis, and defining acceptance criteria.
• Ability to interact confidently with production managers, supervisors, shop-floor personnel, and technical teams.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, communication, and documentation skills.
• Ability to work independently from the client's location and take ownership of functional requirements.
• Understanding of raw material receiving, inspection, put-away, and storage processes.
• Knowledge of inventory management, stock accuracy, cycle counting, and inventory reconciliation.
• Understanding of material picking, kitting, and issuing processes to support production requirements.
• Knowledge of warehouse transfers, stock movements, replenishment, and material availability management.
• Understanding of finished-goods handling, shipping, dispatch, and end-to-end order fulfilment processes.
• Experience with Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) and ERP inventory modules, including their role in managing warehouse and production-related transactions.

Good-to-Have Skills

• Experience in promotional products, customised merchandise, printing, or similar manufacturing environments.
• Experience implementing or supporting ERP, Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), production planning systems, or shop-floor applications.
• Familiarity with manufacturing KPIs such as production throughput, cycle time, downtime, rejection rates, wastage, and resource utilisation.
• Chinese language proficiency to communicate with Chinese-speaking production and operational stakeholders.

Expected Outcomes

• Develop an in-depth understanding of client’s production processes and shop-floor workflows.
• Independently gather, analyse, and document production-related requirements.
• Ensure requirements and delivered functionality accurately reflect actual production operations.
• Minimise requirement gaps, functional rework, and production-related issues during UAT and implementation.
• Establish and maintain clear functional documentation for business workflows.