DS Smith
Cluster Technical Manager
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About the role
We are seeking an experienced and commercially aware Cluster Technical Manager to build and lead a newly established Cluster Technical function within our Design & Innovation (D&I) team.
This is a rare opportunity to shape a function from the ground up – defining how it operates, how it engages with customers, and how it delivers value across nine manufacturing sites.
Reporting to the Retail D&I Manager, you will lead a team of four Cluster Technical Specialists providing customer-facing technical expertise, complaint prevention, technical intelligence, and continuous improvement support. Each Specialist is aligned to specific sites and works on a hybrid basis, so you will be leading a geographically dispersed team – connecting the cluster picture, driving consistency, and ensuring the function’s preventative purpose is protected.
This is a strategic leadership role combining technical excellence, customer engagement, data-driven decision-making, and people leadership. You will shape and deploy the cluster technical strategy while ensuring a proactive approach to technical risk, customer performance, and operational consistency.
You will act as the key technical escalation point for significant, recurring, or cross-site issues, whilst maintaining clear ownership boundaries whereby site quality issues remain the responsibility of local Quality and Production teams.
Responsibilities
Technical Strategy & Governance
- Define and deploy the cluster technical strategy, aligned to D&I, Quality and Packaging Division priorities.
- Own customer technical governance, establishing structured technical reviews with key customers that complement rather than duplicate existing Innovation and Quality processes.
- Own the escalation matrix and decision-rights framework, acting as escalation point for significant, recurring or cross-site technical issues.
- Own the function’s KPI framework, monthly performance reviews and cluster-level trend reporting to D&I, Operations and Sales leadership.
Leadership & Team Development
- Lead, coach and develop four Cluster Technical Specialists across a geographically dispersed cluster; own resource planning, site and customer allocation, and workload balancing.
- Protect the team’s proactive purpose – managing the balance of preventative versus reactive work so prevention is not crowded out by firefighting.
- Embed consistent structured problem-solving standards (8D, RCA) and build technical capability, succession and development plans.
Customer & Stakeholder Management
- Build strong relationships with customers, Cluster Director and MDs, Site General Managers, Site Quality Managers, Innovation and Sales leadership.
- Ensure clean, documented handoffs between the Technical team and site Quality and Production, with ownership boundaries respected and issue status visible to all parties.
- Own cluster-level technical relationships with external suppliers including forme makers, print plate and tooling suppliers.
- Champion the function internally so Sales, Innovation and site teams understand how and when to engage it.
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Insight, Improvement & Consistency
- Aggregate cross-site and cross-customer trend analysis, converting recurring themes into structured prevention and improvement programmes.
- Ensure the team’s involvement in the internal and customer trials programme is planned and prioritised, providing technical insight and data to support it; ownership of trial execution and product conformance remains with site Production and Quality teams. Ensure learnings are captured and deployed across sites.
- Drive the standardisation and product simplification agenda across the cluster, reducing unnecessary complexity.
- Ensure structured technical feedback loops into Design, Innovation and Quality strategy.
Sustainability
- Champion circular design principles and sustainable packaging solutions.
- Promote a right-first-time culture that reduces waste, rework and manufacturing inefficiency.
About you
Essential
- Extensive experience (typically 8+ years) in corrugated or packaging manufacturing across production, quality, technical or design disciplines.
- Deep understanding of corrugated manufacturing processes, covering both corrugator and conversion.
- Proven leadership experience, ideally including geographically dispersed or field-based teams.
- Track record of delivering measurable performance improvement in customer-facing technical, quality or continuous improvement roles.
- Strong customer-facing and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence at senior level in a matrix organisation.
- Experience using structured problem-solving tools such as 8D and Root Cause Analysis (RCA).
- Strong analytical skills and the ability to turn technical data into insight that drives decisions.
- Ability to manage multiple priorities across sites, customers and functions.
Desirable
- Degree in Packaging Technology, Engineering, Materials Science, Manufacturing, Chemistry or a related discipline – or equivalent vocational experience.
- Six Sigma Green or Black Belt, or equivalent continuous improvement qualification.
- Working knowledge of ISO 9001 and BRCGS Packaging Materials and their application in a packaging environment.
- Experience in Technical, Quality, Design or Innovation roles within packaging.
- Understanding of print, tooling and packaging production technologies.
- Experience supporting product development, trials and material implementation.
- Familiarity with ERP, QMS and CRM systems.
- Knowledge of sustainability and circular economy principles.
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Location and travel
Location: Field-based, managing a team covering the cluster’s nine UK sites – Devizes, Fordham, Louth, Belper, Featherstone, Burscough, Neath, Lockerbie and Livingston – and key customer locations. Travel is expected to be approximately 40–50% of your time, including overnight stays, with home-based working in between. You will hold a close working relationship with one cluster site, agreed on appointment.
Hours: Monday to Friday, full time.
Full UK driving licence required. Given the geographic spread of the cluster, a central location would be advantageous, though we welcome applications from candidates across the UK who are comfortable with regular national travel.
Our values
We are looking for someone who can demonstrate how our corporate values are applied in the workplace: Caring, Challenging, Trusted, Responsive and Tenacious.
Benefits
- Competitive salary
- Pension scheme, life assurance and income protection
- Employee Assistance Programme
- 25 days’ holiday plus bank holidays
- Cycle to work scheme
- Employee discounts
About us
We are DS Smith. Together with International Paper, we are a global leader in sustainable packaging solutions and other fibre-based products. We believe a better, more sustainable tomorrow is possible with the right people, who challenge and support one another to enact positive change. We employ more than 65,000 colleagues in North America and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), who are experts in innovation, manufacturing, design, sales, sustainability, supply chain, and much more. Together with our customers, we make the world safer and more productive, one sustainable packaging solution at a time. Become part of a world-leading organisation and do your best work with us.
Fair recruitment at DS Smith
To fulfil our purpose of redefining packaging for a changing world, we aim to build a diverse, motivated and engaged workforce. Our goal is to create a culture of inclusion where everyone is treated fairly, differences are valued, and everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed.
Our people come from diverse backgrounds and bring different perspectives, ideas and experiences to generate unique solutions focused on present and future sustainability challenges. We welcome all candidates to apply, even those not meeting all criteria.
If you require any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know and we will be happy to support you.
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