Operations Department Head

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The Specialty Materials segment manufactures products that provide more than 150 material formulations for glass, glass ceramics and fluoride crystals to meet demand for unique customer needs. Consequently, this segment operates in a wide variety of commercial and industrial markets that include display optics and components, semiconductor optics components, aerospace and defense, astronomy, ophthalmic products, telecommunications components and cover glass that is optimized for portable display devices.

Role Purpose

The Operations Department Head oversees all aspects of the assigned production area and end-to-end manufacturing operations at the Phoenix plant. This role leads and develops a large, multi-shift production team, ensuring employees have the tools, resources, training, and guidance needed to perform safely and effectively. The position owns production planning and execution, drives a strong safety and quality culture, and establishes, monitors, and improves key performance indicators across the production floor.

Through data-driven decision-making, Lean leadership, and continuous improvement, the role optimizes efficiency, cost, quality, yield, uptime, labor effectiveness, and throughput to achieve business, service, and profitability objectives.

• Own execution of production plans and schedules to meet customer demand, maximize throughput, and achieve cost, quality, delivery, inventory, safety, service, and growth targets.
• Lead, coach, and develop manufacturing leaders and hourly production teams across a multi-shift operation; ensure staffing, training, performance management, and employee engagement support safe and reliable operations.
• Establish, track, communicate, and drive improvement of production KPIs, including safety, quality, yield, uptime, scrap, labor efficiency, output, schedule adherence, and asset effectiveness.
• Provide daily direction to production leaders on operating priorities, established procedures, escalation needs, and performance expectations.
• Champion process control, change management, and root cause problem solving to improve process capability, reduce variation, and strengthen operational stability.
• Maintain quality standards for assigned products and processes, ensuring adherence to specifications, quality systems, customer expectations, and manufacturing best practices.
• Lead Lean, Six Sigma, and continuous improvement initiatives that reduce waste, improve flow, increase equipment reliability, and deliver measurable cost and productivity improvements.
• Manage budgets, resource plans, labor utilization, and production costs to optimize manufacturing performance and minimize waste while supporting business priorities.
• Own safety performance for the production area and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements, internal standards, training requirements, and safe work practices.
• Collaborate closely with Quality, Engineering, Supply Chain, Maintenance, Logistics, and other support departments to align priorities, remove production barriers, support customer commitments, and drive cross-functional accountability for operational results.
• Apply current manufacturing best practices, production data, automation concepts, and emerging technologies to improve performance, reliability, and decision-making.
• Deploy Corning’s talent management programs within the department to attract, develop, and retain…