Production Manager

Position Summary

The Production Manager leads daily PVC pipe manufacturing operations with a primary focus on safe, reliable, and responsible extrusion of exceptional PVC pipe. This role is accountable for production execution, extrusion performance, product quality, employee leadership, and continuous improvement in a fast-paced manufacturing environment. The Production Manager works closely with Planning, Maintenance, Quality, Shipping, and plant leadership to ensure customer requirements are met through consistent output, dependable operations, and disciplined process control.

Essential Functions

• Lead, coordinate, and supervise daily production operations for PVC pipe extrusion lines and related downstream processes.
• Plan staffing, production schedules, and line priorities to meet safety, quality, output, and customer delivery expectations.
• Oversee bulk material handling, resin compounding, and blending operations to ensure accurate recipe formulation, consistent material quality, and uninterrupted supply of compound to the extrusion lines.
• Drive reliable plant performance by ensuring extrusion lines are properly staffed, set up, supplied, and operated in accordance with established standards.
• Oversee extrusion operations to ensure pipe dimensions, appearance, belling, print, packaging, and overall product quality meet company and customer specifications.
• Monitor daily production results, labor usage, scrap, downtime, changeovers, and throughput, and take action to improve performance.
• Work closely with operators, leads, maintenance, and quality personnel to troubleshoot process variation, equipment issues, and product nonconformances.
• Promote a culture of reliability and responsibility by holding team members accountable for safe work, product quality, attendance, housekeeping, and operational discipline.
• Lead root cause analysis and corrective actions related to scrap, downtime, quality defects, customer complaints, and production inefficiencies.
• Partner with Maintenance to improve equipment uptime, preventive maintenance coordination, startup readiness, and long-term extrusion line reliability.
• Coverage with Quality to maintain compliance with product standards, testing requirements, documentation expectations, and nonconformance response processes.
• Support new product trials, process improvements, tooling changes, and operating parameter adjustments to improve extrusion performance and product consistency.
• Maintain safe and organized production areas, including compliance with OSHA requirements, company safety rules, machine guarding, lockout/tagout, and good housekeeping practices.
• Review production data and key performance indicators and communicate results, priorities, and performance gaps to plant leadership.
• Support hiring, onboarding, training, scheduling, performance management, and employee development within the production team.
• Collaborate with Shipping, Planning, and Customer Service to align production output with customer demand and delivery commitments.
• Perform other duties as assigned in support of manufacturing operations.

Qualifications

• Education and Experience: Bachelor’s degree in manufacturing, engineering, operations, industrial technology, or a related field preferred; equivalent manufacturing leadership experience may be considered in lieu of a degree.
• Minimum of 5 years of manufacturing, production, or process operations experience, preferably in plastics, extrusion, pipe, or other continuous manufacturing environments.
• Minimum of 3 years of supervisory or production leadership experience in an industrial setting.
• Experience with extrusion equipment, process troubleshooting, product quality systems, and manufacturing performance metrics preferred.
• Experience leading teams in a safety-sensitive, quality-driven manufacturing environment required.

Competencies

• Production leadership
• Extrusion process management
• Safety and compliance
• Quality assurance
• Team development
• Continuous improvement
• Problem-solving and root cause analysis
• Production planning and execution
• Cross-functional coordination
• Reliability and accountability

Physical Requirements

• Ability to stand and walk for extended periods in a manufacturing environment.
• Ability to climb stairs, bend, stoop, reach, and move throughout the plant safely.