Reports To: Chief Operating Officer
Classification: Exempt
Pay Range: $140,000 – $160,000 annually
Bonus: 15% Annual Incentive Bonus
Operational Scope: Production, Ball Mill, and Blow Molding
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The Plant Manager is responsible for leading all manufacturing operations across Production, Ball Mill, and Blow Molding to ensure safe, efficient, reliable, and high-quality plant performance. This position provides leadership to the manufacturing organization and establishes clear expectations and accountability for safety, quality, service, productivity, equipment performance, and continuous improvement.
The Plant Manager maintains a strong presence on the manufacturing floor while developing managers, supervisors, and team leads to effectively lead their respective areas. This role works closely with Maintenance, Supply Chain, Quality, R&D, Finance, Human Resources, and Sales to ensure manufacturing capabilities are aligned with customer demand and company objectives.
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Plant Operations & Daily Management
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Lead daily manufacturing operations across Production, Ball Mill, and Blow Molding.
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Ensure safe, stable, and efficient operations while meeting production, quality, service, and cost objectives.
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Establish and maintain consistent daily management routines, including plant huddles, shift handoffs, visual management, operating reviews, and followup on open action items.
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Monitor plant performance and utilize operational data to identify issues, establish priorities, and remove barriers to production.
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Establish clear accountability and decisionmaking responsibilities throughout the manufacturing organization.
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Ensure routine operational issues and daily production needs are addressed at the appropriate leadership level.
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Partner with Supply Chain and Maintenance leadership to achieve established operational KPIs.
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Ensure manufacturing operations achieve established budget and performance objectives.
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Lead, coach, mentor, and develop managers, supervisors, team leads, and manufacturing personnel.
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Develop frontline leaders' ability to independently make decisions, solve problems, and manage daily operations.
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Establish clear expectations for safety, quality, attendance, productivity, accountability, teamwork, and communication.
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Provide regular coaching, feedback, and performance management to manufacturing leaders.
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Partner with Human Resources on staffing, employee relations, performance management, coaching, training, workforce planning, and succession planning.
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Identify organizational and skilldevelopment needs and implement appropriate training and development initiatives.
Production Performance & Operational Excellence
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Monitor manufacturing performance across shifts and departments to ensure production schedules and customer requirements are achieved.
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Evaluate labor productivity, schedule attainment, throughput, downtime, scrap, and other key performance indicators.
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Optimize labor and equipment utilization while maintaining established safety and quality standards.
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Ensure manufacturing resources are appropriately aligned with production demand.
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Drive accountability for meeting established production and operational targets.
Lean Manufacturing & Continuous Improvement
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Lead Lean Manufacturing and continuous improvement initiatives across plant operations.
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Implement and sustain standard work, visual management, leader standard work, tiered accountability, and structured root cause problemsolving.
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Identify opportunities to improve production flow, labor utilization, changeovers, waste reduction, downtime, and operational stability.
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Lead root cause analysis of recurring production and process issues and ensure sustainable corrective actions are implemented.
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Ensure process improvements are documented and incorporated into Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and standard work.
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Promote employee involvement in continuous improvement and operational problemsolving.
Maintenance, Reliability & Equipment Performance
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Partner closely with Maintenance leadership to improve equipment uptime, preventive maintenance execution, breakdown response, and longterm equipment reliability.
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Balance production priorities with preventive and corrective maintenance requirements.
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Review recurring equipment downtime and operational constraints to ensure root causes are identified and addressed.
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Hold manufacturing leaders accountable for proper equipment operation, basic equipment care, and timely communication of maintenance concerns.
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Escalate equipment and capital needs when longterm solutions are required.
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Support implementation of approved equipment installations, upgrades, and capital projects from an operational perspective.
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Collaborate with Maintenance to ensure production equipment is safe, reliable, and available to support manufacturing requirements.
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Maintain a strong manufacturing floor presence and establish the expectation that safety and quality take priority over production output.
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Promote and enforce all company safety policies, procedures, and safe work practices.
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Ensure employees comply with PPE requirements and established safety procedures.
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Ensure compliance with applicable OSHA, IOSHA, environmental, and company requirements.
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Ensure incidents and unsafe conditions are properly reported, investigated, and addressed.
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Hold manufacturing leadership accountable for implementing appropriate corrective actions following safety incidents.
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Promote a proactive safety culture throughout manufacturing operations.
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Partner with Quality and R&D to ensure finished products meet established specifications and quality standards.
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Ensure manufacturing processes comply with established raw material requirements, mixing standards, weights and measures requirements, and process controls.
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Ensure quality issues and recurring process failures are investigated and corrective actions are implemented.
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Support new product introductions, process changes, and quality improvement initiatives.
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Promote accountability for product quality throughout the manufacturing organization.
Cross-Functional Collaboration & Business Planning
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Partner with Supply Chain, Maintenance, Finance, R&D, Sales, Quality, and Human Resources to support customer demand and business growth.
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Ensure manufacturing operations are prepared for changes in customer demand, raw material availability, labor requirements, new products, packaging changes, promotions, and major operational transitions.
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Communicate manufacturing capabilities, constraints, risks, and recovery plans clearly and proactively to business partners and senior leadership.
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Provide operational input into capital planning, capacity requirements, process changes, and future plant needs.
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Collaborate with Supply Chain to align manufacturing capacity and production requirements with demand.
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Participate in strategic planning and operational initiatives supporting company growth.
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Bachelor's degree in Operations, Engineering, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Business, or a related field preferred; equivalent manufacturing leadership experience will be considered.
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Minimum five years of progressive manufacturing leadership experience, including responsibility for production teams and frontline leaders.
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Experience leading multiple manufacturing functions or a broad plant operating scope.
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Manufacturing experience in consumer packaged goods (CPG), household products, chemicals, food, or another highvolume manufacturing environment preferred.
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Handson experience with Lean Manufacturing, continuous improvement, daily management systems, standard work, and structured problemsolving.
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Strong understanding of labor productivity, production flow, capacity planning, quality, downtime, equipment reliability, and manufacturing cost drivers.
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Demonstrated ability to partner effectively with Maintenance and drive accountability for equipment performance and corrective action.
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Strong analytical, problemsolving, and decisionmaking abilities.
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Strong leadership, coaching, communication, and changemanagement skills.
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Ability to manage multiple priorities and make effective decisions in a fastpaced manufacturing environment.
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Visible, handson leadership style with the ability to engage employees at all levels of the organization.
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Ability to appropriately delegate responsibility while maintaining accountability for plant performance.
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Bilingual English/Spanish strongly preferred.
(Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the position.)
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Ability to regularly stand, walk, bend, reach, and navigate manufacturing and warehouse environments.
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Ability to remain on the manufacturing floor for extended periods.
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Ability to occasionally lift, carry, push, or pull up to 50 pounds.
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Ability to safely navigate areas containing moving machinery, forklifts, production equipment, and other industrial operations.
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Ability to work in manufacturing environments with exposure to noise, dust, heat, vibration, chemicals, and varying temperatures.
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Ability to wear required personal protective equipment (PPE).
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Availability to support offshift operations, weekends, and emergency situations as business needs require.
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Manufacturing Leadership
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People Development & Coaching
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Operational Excellence
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Lean Manufacturing
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Continuous Improvement
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Safety Leadership
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Production Management
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Equipment Reliability
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Root Cause Analysis
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KPI & Performance Management
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Strategic Planning
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CrossFunctional Collaboration
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Decision Making & Accountability
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Change Management
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