Manufacturing Operations Leader

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and support daily factory operations, production execution, troubleshooting, and issue resolution.
• Responsible for operational performance and improvement of key metrics including safety, quality, delivery, cost and morale.
• Align area metrics with overall department/value stream goals; organize resources to deliver on these metrics.
• Oversee the daily start-up of production area. Ensure line is properly staffed and manage staffing throughout the day; monitor expected and unexpected absenteeism.
• Review daily plan with Team Leaders. Support production, including technical support, manufacturing troubleshooting, and escalation of production risks.
• Maintain strong understanding of fabrication capabilities, equipment constraints, production flow, and process requirements. Maintain a good technical knowledge of operations; follow the escalation process to address and respond to abnormalities and recommend corrective action as required.
• Career development and training opportunities for employees. Promote standard work, accountability, 5S, and continuous improvement across the facility.
• Support equipment maintenance priorities and ensure production issues are addressed with urgency and discipline.
• Promote standard work, accountability, 5S, and continuous improvement across the facility.
• Coordinate with engineering, quality, maintenance, supply chain, and production teams to remove operational barriers.
• Facilitate delegation of issues to appropriate level in escalation process. Ensure the Lean manufacturing practices and Escalation Process.
• Lead work team to react aggressively to factory inefficiencies. Drive problem-solving and root cause identification of problems for the production area.
• Engage all members of escalation team to address and resolve problems, ex. PIE, quality, facilities engineer, etc.

Leadership & Administration

• Provide active day-to-day leadership, work direction and support for a manufacturing team within a production area.
• Partner with site Human Resources team to ensure fair and consistent administration of all policies, work rules and processes.
• Oversee line staffing and allocate employees to cover absenteeism.

EHS and Compliance Support

• Support LOTO, Job Safety Instructions, SDS management, PPE management, emergency response, and compliance calendar activities.
• Reinforce safe working practices across production, maintenance, facilities, and contractor work.
• Partner with EHS resources to identify hazards, support corrective actions, and maintain compliance readiness.
• Ensure safety considerations are built into production decisions, maintenance work, and facility projects.

Quality

• Ensure the product produced on manufacturing line is defect-free and produced according to specification.
• Ensure all quality processes/standards are followed within assigned production area.
• Monitor quality issues on a daily basis and drives the resolution or escalation for any defect.
• Ensure Team Leaders include quality standards in Standardized Work to meet design intent and build in quality.
• Work cross-functionally with multiple stakeholders to address and solve production line quality issues (i.e. Team Leader, engineering, quality).
• Monitor scrap data/reports to drive resolution of scrap issues and work projects to prevent future scrap.

Materials, Supply Chain, and Planning Oversight

• Review and oversee the materials resource responsible for day-to-day inventory, ERP, and material planning activities.
• Monitor inventory levels, material availability, and Oracle / ERP information as needed to support production.
• Support forecasting and production planning by helping evaluate demand, labor, inventory, equipment capacity, and operational constraints.
• Coordinate with materials, supply chain, production, and engineering teams to resolve shortages, delays, substitutions, and inventory issues.
• Escalate material risks that could affect production schedules, customer commitments, or project timelines.

Facilities, IT, and Site Infrastructure

• Oversee contracted building maintenance vendors to ensure they address facility needs including repairs and infrastructure readiness.
• Identify and escalate facility or infrastructure risks that may affect safety, compliance, production, security, or employee experience.

Finance, Budgets, and Labor Management

• Support budget breakdowns, spending allocations, program deck management, and financial reporting inputs.
• Understand and manage cost distinctions including COGS vs. non-COGS, direct vs. indirect spend, expense vs. CapEx, material cost, VLOH, and standard cost.
• Partner with finance to review budget variances, cost drivers, labor costs, and spending risks.
• Manage factory and 1B staffing needs, labor budget visibility, Magnit system activity, and weekly approval of hours.
• Coordinate with supervisors, HR, and staffing partners to ensure appropriate labor coverage.