Operations Manager

Overview

Sprout is a global IT hardware retirement provider for hyperscaler and enterprise clients. We leverage a nationwide footprint (and international partner network) combined with proprietary software to enable efficient end-to-end IT asset disposition with a focus on data-bearing devices from the client to the cloud. The company is headquartered in Charlotte, NC with additional operations near Sacramento, Dallas, and Boston. Sprout provides software and services to clients in the form of our IT Asset Disposition, Certified Destruction, and Responsible Recycling solutions.

Since our founding as an electronic waste startup from a Duke University dorm room in 2014, we have been expanding at an average rate of >50% each year. By adhering to our 3 values (One Sprout, Deliver Excellence, and Integrity Matters), we are proud of our culture to move at #Sprout Speed seeking to become the emerging leader in our industry.

The Operations Manager owns end-to-end daily execution across all processing, receiving, and shipping areas of an assigned facility or value stream. Where the Supervisor is accountable for a shift or department and the Facility Manager is accountable for the site as a business, the Operations Manager is accountable for the connective tissue between them — cross-departmental flow, plan attainment, labor deployment, and the disciplined execution of standard work.

This role converts the site plan into daily and weekly execution: staffing to demand, balancing lines, clearing constraints, holding standard work, and escalating what cannot be resolved at the floor level. The Operations Manager develops Senior Supervisors and Supervisors into the next layer of site leadership and serves as the Facility Manager’s designee in their absence.

All activity is performed within Sprout’s QEHSMS and in conformance with R2v3, ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001, ISO 27001, and OSHA requirements, with continuous improvement driven through Lean, 5S, and Kaizen.

• Own daily plan attainment across all assigned areas — receiving, processing, test/diagnostics, e-commerce prep, shipping — against throughput, quality, and SLA commitments.
• Balance labor daily against demand and backlog; reallocate headcount across departments to protect the constraint and prevent aged inventory.
• Run the daily management system — tier meetings, production boards, Andon response, and shift handoff — ensuring issues are surfaced and closed within 24 hours or escalated with an owner and date.
• Drive speed to finished goods
  , reducing dwell time between stations and moving product to saleable or final disposition status inside SLA.
• Coordinate cross-functionally with Customer Success, Logistics, E-Commerce, Test Engineering, and Compliance to remove blockers before they impact commitments.

• Manage to facility KPIs including PPH, labor as a percent of revenue, inventory accuracy, inventory aging, SLA close rate, and rework/NCR rate.
• Use sERP and Power BI as the source of truth for performance discussion — no verbal-only status; variance to plan must be quantified, root-caused, and assigned.
• Prepare and present weekly performance reviews to the Facility Manager, including corrective action status and constraint analysis.
• Manage controllable cost lines — overtime, temporary labor, consumables, and supplies — within the site budget set by the Facility Manager.

• Enforce SOP and Work Instruction adherence at every station; verify operators are executing the current released revision and not improvised methods.
• Approve or elevate deviations and holds per SOP; ensure no deviation is executed without documented Supervisor-or-above approval.
• Protect chain of custody for all data-bearing devices from receipt through final disposition, including serialization, lot integrity, and reconciliation accuracy in sERP.
• Support document control by identifying SOP/WI gaps and drift observed on the floor and routing them to the QMS Coordinator and Compliance for formal revision.
• Maintain audit readiness at all times — records, training documentation, and process evidence…