Plant Manager

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The Plant Manager is responsible for providing leadership, direction, and resource stewardship for a high-volume manufacturing site located in Lithia Springs, GA. This role is accountable for driving timely and impactful improvements to the operating environment and for delivering performance at or above expectations for safety, quality, delivery, cost, and their team. He/She will lead the execution of cross-functional strategies and plans that ensure we execute the company’s manufacturing excellence roadmap. The goals of this role are to manage structured change and combine long-term thinking with near-term actions and decisions.

Successful candidates demonstrate their commitment to their team by taking direct responsibility for the safety of the people who work in your business, building trust and valuing the experience of the team around them and look to develop the people, sets high expectations for self and others, is a change agent and an effective communicator, is comfortable frequently interacting with senior leaders, and shows personal resilience. This position reports to the Director of Operations.

Operations Leadership

Set an unwavering expectation that relationships between supervisors, peers, and employees are respectful and inclusive

Maintain environments that influence how we feel physically and mentally at work and reflect attention to detail not only in the quality of our output, but in our daily productive routines

Develop site strategies for COGS reduction while managing growth and/or expansion

Reduce costs of goods measured as savings year-to-year including direct labor and overhead

Manage and ensure successful new product/piloting

Cross-Functional Leadership

Take responsibility for the safety and security of the people who work in our business, the products we supply to customers, and the company’s physical assets; identify, assess, and address any immediate safety and security issues

Create optimized schedules that balance production efficiency, deliver supply, and employee well-being by selectively and strategically using OT

Ensure compliance with quality assurance measured in our QA Index and Right First Time

Help drive all TQM activities within the sites

Operations Excellence

Invest a substantial amount of time reinforcing our manufacturing excellence roadmap, holding his/herself and others accountable for performance and leadership commitments

Identify and implement ways of working that make lean thinking and employee engagement a way of life in the plant: focus will be on the process, not the individual

Drive simplification efforts within the site, particularly those that impact operational costs

Help manage the effort for all new equipment, assist in establishing a project team, clearly establishing a Commissioning/Qualification/Verification (CQV) process approach

Talent & Organization

Invest significant effort on talent offense and aligning training and development of teams to mindsets and skillsets important to the future of our business

Provide tactical direction as needed for all operations groups

Develop and train leadership and technical groups

Use qualitative and quantitative approaches to forecasting labor demand and mix

Culture

Foster a culture, including ways of working and behaviors, that is congruent with our mission, values, and success model

Take an active role in the community: raise awareness about opportunities the manufacturing industry can offer, nurture future manufacturing talent, grow their network and the company’s reputation, and give back

Develop and deliver approaches to improve culture based on employee engagement survey data

Develop and implement solutions that drive a high-performance culture

EDUCATION AND WORK EXPERIENCE REQUIREMENTS

Bachelor’s degree required, preferably in engineering or business, or in place of a degree, a minimum of 12-15 years of significant, relevant professional experience

Minimum of 8 years previous experience in manufacturing, including packaging, process engineering, warehousing, and assembly

Minimum of 4 years in people management role, including leading a cross disciplinary leadership team

Proven track record of application of lean tools, processes, and systems to deliver sustained continuous improvement preferred

Experienced leading teams through compliant execution of formally defined management systems

Experience participating on cross-functional teams, driving decision-making, and overseeing operational and financial metrics

Possesses strong knowledge of manufacturing supply chain functions, including planning, logistics, quality, materials management, and inventory control

Requires minimal travel (10%)

All Microsoft Office products; AutoCAD and statistical packages desired