Production Manager

About MiLa

MìLà is a Chinese food company. Our teams work tirelessly to enhance delicious products that we all enjoy at home! While MìLà is a Chinese food brand, it’s really a celebration of the power of food to bring us together, share our stories, and discover new flavors and cultures.

Core Values

Explore our core values here.

Production Manager

MìLà is seeking a hands-on, tech-savvy Production Manager to lead daily production execution, schedule delivery, frontline leadership, and operational discipline in a fast-growing food manufacturing environment.

• Lead daily production across lines, shifts, and production areas.
• Execute the production schedule safely, efficiently, and to quality standards.
• Ensure lines are labor-ready, material-ready, equipment-ready, sanitation-ready, and quality-ready.
• Use ERP/MRP systems to support production scheduling, material readiness, labor planning, production reporting, and issue escalation.
• Own production KPIs: safety, quality, output, schedule attainment, labor efficiency, yield, downtime, waste, rework, and first-pass quality.
• Support rapid scale-ups, new product introductions, production trials, process testing, and equipment start-ups.
• Use production data to identify losses, prioritize actions, and improve performance.
• Partner with Materials, FSQA, Maintenance, Sanitation, Planning, and R&D to remove barriers to execution.
• Ensure accurate production reporting for output, downtime, labor, material usage, scrap, rework, and losses.
• Build standard work for start-ups, changeovers, staffing, production checks, downtime tracking, trials, and end-of-shift closeout.
• Coach and develop supervisors, leads, and frontline employees.
• Maintain strong GMP, safety, 5S, housekeeping, and food safety discipline.
• Build a culture of safety, quality, urgency, accountability, flexibility, technology adoption, and teamwork.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of production, manufacturing, or operations leadership experience.
• 3+ years leading supervisors, leads, or frontline production teams.
• Experience in food, CPG, manufacturing, or high-volume production.
• Strong hands-on experience using ERP/MRP systems to support production scheduling, material availability, production reporting, inventory consumption, and operational decision-making.
• Tech-savvy leader with ability to use production data, dashboards, spreadsheets, ERP/MRP systems, and digital tools to manage performance.
• Experience in fast-changing environments with scale-ups, product trials, shifting priorities, or new product launches.
• Strong knowledge of production scheduling, labor planning, line performance, downtime, yield, waste, and throughput.
• Ability to use data to solve problems and improve performance.
• Strong knowledge of GMPs, food safety, sanitation, safety, and quality standards.
• Strong communication, coaching, and cross-functional leadership skills.
• Ability to work on the production floor in refrigerated/frozen environments.
• Flexible availability to support multiple shifts, weekends, trials, start-ups, and urgent production needs.
• Bachelor’s degree in Operations, Business, Engineering, Food Science, Supply Chain, or related field.
• Experience in frozen food, meat/poultry, dumplings, prepared meals, USDA/FDA-regulated food manufacturing, or CPG.
• Experience with forming, cooking, freezing, packaging, or high-speed food production lines.
• Experience with ERP/MRP platforms, production dashboards, labor tracking, downtime tracking, digital production boards, or manufacturing execution systems.
• Leverage Lean, Six Sigma, TPM, Kaizen, 5S, or continuous improvement experience.
• Bilingual English/Spanish preferred.

Benefits

• Schedule delivered safely, consistently, and efficiently.
• Lines start on time with labor, materials, equipment, sanitation, and QA readiness confirmed.
• ERP/MRP usage improves production readiness, material coordination, and reporting accuracy.
• Output, labor efficiency, schedule attainment, and first-pass quality improve.
• Downtime, waste, rework, scrap, and production losses are reduced.
• Scale-ups, trials, and new products are executed with fewer disruptions.
• Production decisions are data-driven.
• Supervisors and leads become stronger frontline leaders.
• Production floor operates with discipline, urgency, ownership, technology adoption, and teamwork.

Work Environment

• 100% on-site at our facility in Sumner, WA
• Requires regular production floor presence.
• Must be comfortable working around raw meat/poultry, dough, sauces, frozen products, sanitation chemicals, equipment, and cold environments.
• Must be available to support audits, inspections, urgent quality issues, multiple shifts, and occasional weekend or off-shift needs.

Why Join Us?

• Comprehensive health coverage including medical, dental, and vision insurance. MiLa covers 75% of employee premiums & 25% of dependent premiums.
• Optional Extra Protection for Life & AD&D (with guarantee issue amounts at time of hire), Hospital, and Short Term Disability.
• Invest in your Future - 401(k) plan to help with your long-term financial security.

Pay Range

The pay range for this role is: $120,000 - $150,000 USD per year (Sumner).

Operations

Sumner, WA