AI Integration Specialist – Manufacturing Operations
Full-Time | On-Site | Bettendorf, Iowa
About the Role
LeClaire Manufacturing is an aluminum foundry producing sand and permanent mold castings for some of the most demanding customers in North America. We've been building parts the right way for decades — and now we're building the future of how we do it.
We're looking for someone who sits at the intersection of manufacturing know-how and modern AI tooling. This isn't an IT role. It isn't a pure data science role either. It's something newer: a builder who understands what it means to run a production floor, and who can translate that understanding into AI-powered tools that make our teams faster, smarter, and more effective every day.
You'll start by using AI to help schedule our departments, analyze job cost data, surface scrap trends, and answer operational questions that used to take hours to pull manually. Then you'll grow that into something bigger: a connected ecosystem of AI platforms that touches every corner of our operation.
What You'll Actually Be Doing
In the Near Term
- Build and maintain AI-assisted scheduling workflows for our manufacturing departments — pulling from job cost data, production history, machine capacity, and operator assignments to generate weekly schedules that reflect what's actually achievable
- Develop conversational AI tools connected to our live data systems (job cost, scrap tracking, maintenance, inspection, labor, process monitoring) so supervisors and managers can ask plain-English questions and get real answers
- Create dashboards and automated analyses that surface anomalies, highlight at-risk jobs, and flag where we're running behind or ahead on rate
As You Grow in the Role
- Architect and deploy additional AI platforms across departments — quality, maintenance, purchasing, quoting, and wherever the data and the need align
- Connect our existing systems (Epicor ERP, Thrive, Ignition/PaperlessLog, monday.com) into a unified AI layer that can reason across them together
- Build internal tools that non-technical users can actually use — not demos that live in a notebook, but real applications that get used every day
- Document your builds and train the people who'll rely on them
- Stay current on where AI tooling is heading and bring new capabilities to LeClaire before our competitors do
Who You Are
You don't fit neatly into a traditional job category, and that's exactly why we're writing this posting. The right person for this role is probably someone who:
- Grew up curious about how things work — machines, processes, systems
- Taught yourself to code or use data tools because you needed them to answer a question, not because it was assigned
- Has spent time in or around manufacturing, engineering, operations, or supply chain — you know what a job traveler is, you understand why on-time delivery matters, and you don't need a glossary to follow a conversation about scrap rates
- Gets genuinely excited about connecting a live database to a language model and watching it answer a question a manager has been manually calculating for years
- Communicates clearly with people who aren't technical, and isn't condescending about it
You don't need a specific degree or a specific number of years of experience. What you need is the ability to ship things that work and the judgment to know what's worth building.
Candidate Profiles We're Looking For
This role will attract very different people. The following profiles are all strong fits — what unites them is the combination of manufacturing domain knowledge and a genuine ability to build:
Manufacturing / Industrial / Process Engineer Who Learned to Code
Our best-fit profile. Someone who came up through engineering, spent years on the floor or close to it, and somewhere along the way started building their own tools — Excel first, then Python or something more. They understand yield, cycle time, and why scrap reasons matter. They know the problem instinctively.
Self-Taught Developer with an Ops or Supply Chain Background
Someone who worked in planning, scheduling, logistics, or operations — got frustrated with the tools available, and built their own. May have come from a smaller company where they wore many hats. Strong on the builder side, fluent in the operational world.
Manufacturing Technology / Industry 4.0 Specialist
Someone who's been working at the intersection of OT and IT in manufacturing environments — familiar with ERP, MES, SCADA, and increasingly AI integration. May have titles like Digital Transformation Engineer or Smart Manufacturing Analyst.
Operations Analyst or Production Planner Who Builds
Someone currently in a planning, scheduling, or analytical role who has been quietly building tools and automations on the side that their company hasn't fully appreciated yet. Ready to make this their full-time focus.
You might currently work as a manufacturing engineer, industrial engineer, process engineer, operations analyst, production planner, or supply chain analyst — and have been quietly building tools your company hasn't fully appreciated. Or you call yourself a developer, but manufacturing is in your background and you're tired of building things that don't matter to anything real. Either path works.
Technical Skills
Strong Foundation In
- Working with AI APIs (Anthropic Claude, OpenAI, or similar) — prompt engineering, tool use / function calling, agentic workflows
- Python or JavaScript for building data pipelines and applications
- SQL — able to write queries against real production databases without hand-holding
- Connecting to REST APIs and MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers
Helpful But Not Required
- Experience with ERP systems, especially Epicor
- Familiarity with manufacturing execution systems or SCADA / Ignition environments
- Excel and spreadsheet automation
- Basic understanding of foundry or machining operations
What Makes This Opportunity Unusual
Most manufacturers are still figuring out what AI means for their business. We're already using it — connected to live job cost data, scrap history, machine monitoring, labor records, and process data. You'd be joining at the moment where the foundation is in place and the real building begins.
You'll have direct access to leadership, real operational data, and the latitude to build tools that matter. If you've ever wanted to work somewhere that will actually let you try things, this is it.
This role doesn't have a clear career ladder because it's a new function. What it has is ceiling-free upside for the right person.
Compensation & Details
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Competitive salary commensurate with experience
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Full benefits including Health, Dental, Vision, Life & Disability and Supplemental Insurance: Critical Illness, Accident and Hospital Indemnity
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401(k) with employer match
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Paid time off and paid holidays
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On-site in Bettendorf, Iowa (Quad Cities area)
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Direct report to senior operations leadership
To Apply
Send us something that shows us who you are. A resume is fine, but what we're really interested in is evidence — a project you built, a tool you made, a problem you solved with data and code. If you've never written a cover letter that felt worth reading, write one anyway and tell us why this role clicked for you.
LeClaire Manufacturing is an equal opportunity employer. We are a family-owned business that takes both the work and the people seriously.
