Director of Manufacturing Job Auburn area,Alabama USA,Manufacturing / Production

Step into the senior production leadership seat at a growing, family-owned industrial coatings manufacturer that has spent the last three years transforming from having almost no formal metrics or process discipline into a genuinely data-driven operation with real room left for this person to take it further.
Serve as the direct right hand to the COO, freeing him to focus on strategy while you own the day-to-day performance of the plant: safety, delivery, cost, quality, and people, across all shifts.
Work with a genuinely collaborative, low-ego team culture. Command-and-control operators don't tend to last here - people who lead through competence and buy-in do.
Bring your expertise to a company investing seriously in AI-enabled operations data, well beyond what's typical for a company this size, to get better information into the hands of the people making decisions.
Work across a genuinely varied, high-performance product portfolio - including a premium, high-margin fluoropolymer coating used on architectural metal panels - rather than a single commodity line.
Real upside: a meaningful KPI-based incentive on top of base salary, plus the potential to be part of shaping a future new facility as the company's growth continues.
Full relocation support, including a moving allowance, temporary housing, and a paid house-hunting trip for you and your spouse.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

Own facility-wide safety culture and standards across every shift - not just compliance, but genuine accountability.
Own the master production schedule and drive On-Time, In-Full delivery as a top-tier metric, treating every customer commitment as a promise.
Manage production cost performance - cost per gallon, labor, raw material yield, scrap, and overtime - partnering closely with a strong plant controller rather than working in a vacuum.
Lead and develop your Production Supervisors across all shifts, building consistent standards and closing the gap between day shift and off-shift performance.
Drive continuous improvement - cycle time, throughput, OEE - using Lean and root-cause tools, and champion the plant's ERP and data systems.
Partner closely with the lab and QC team on specifications, quality holds, and customer issue resolution, bringing a genuinely collaborative approach rather than a territorial one.
Set and hold the facility-wide housekeeping and 5S standard - this is a genuinely important part of the role here, not a box-checking exercise, and you should be ready to point to real examples of how you've built that discipline elsewhere.

THE RIGHT CANDIDATE Education & Technical Skills

7+ years of experience in paint or coatings manufacturing is required, with progressive responsibility from the floor through supervisory or management roles.
3+ years in a production or plant management role with direct cost-center accountability is required, ideally including management across multiple shifts.
Hands-on experience in both waterborne and solvent-borne coatings is required; familiarity with higher-performance or coil-adjacent coating technologies is a meaningful plus.
Experience in a small-batch, custom-order manufacturing environment is a strong plus. If your entire background is in large-batch, highly automated production, this may be a harder transition unless you've specifically worked in a smaller-batch facility.
Financial literacy - the ability to read and manage a production cost center and work effectively alongside a plant controller - is essential.
A bachelor's degree in a technical, engineering, or business discipline is preferred; an equivalent combination of education and progressive manufacturing leadership experience will be considered.
Strong proficiency in Microsoft Office (especially Excel) and ERP systems is required. Experience with Power BI and/or AI-driven tools is a plus.
A collaborative leader, not a command-and-control operator. You earn buy-in rather than demand it, and you genuinely enjoy developing supervisors and teams.
Proactive about cost and performance - you speak up about the financial implications of decisions rather than waiting to be told what they are.
A natural partner across functions, especially with quality and lab teams; you build relationships rather than draw lines.
Energized by being part of a real transformation story - you want to build on strong early progress, not start from zero, and not just maintain what's already working.
Genuinely excited about small-company life: hands-on, close to the business, and motivated by mission and impact as much as title.
Aligned with a mission-driven, values-led company culture, and comfortable working within that kind of environment.

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