IT Operations Manager

Job Description

The IT Operations Manager is responsible for strengthening the reliability, responsiveness, and scalability of Richards Manufacturing’s IT environment. This role serves as a hands‑on operational leader and force multiplier for the VP of IT, ensuring day‑to‑day IT execution is strong while the organization remains resilient, modern, and well‑positioned for growth. This position plays a critical role in business continuity planning, user support effectiveness, project execution, and technology adoption across manufacturing, warehouse, and corporate environments.

The IT Operations Manager also supports enterprise initiatives such as capacity expansion, plant changes, and network integration with TE, ensuring improvements are delivered with minimal disruption to users. Why This Role Exists Richards Manufacturing is growing in scale and complexity. This role exists to ensure IT execution keeps pace — improving speed, reliability, and user experience — while reducing organizational dependency on any single individual.

The IT Operations Manager ensures that systems, people, vendors, and processes work together to support uninterrupted operations and continuous improvement.

Location
:
Onsite, Richards Manufacturing Facility (Irvington, NJ)

• Own day‑to‑day IT operational execution across manufacturing plants, warehouses, and corporate offices.
• Improve ticket management, prioritization, escalation, and closure to increase responsiveness and user satisfaction.
• Act as first point of escalation for IT incidents, coordinating internal resources, vendors, and managed service providers.
• Ensure consistent service delivery standards across locations.

• Develop, maintain, and continuously improve IT business continuity and disaster recovery plans.
• Lead regular testing of continuity and recovery plans, documenting results and improvements.
• Hold managed service providers accountable to contractual SLAs related to uptime, recovery, and support.
• Reduce operational risk through redundancy, documentation, and coverage planning.

• Provide operational IT support for enterprise applications, including Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations.
• Coordinate issue resolution, enhancements, and integrations with vendors and internal stakeholders.
• D365 experience is helpful but not required; focus is on execution and coordination rather than system ownership.

• Design and deliver IT training programs to improve user knowledge, productivity, and confidence.
• Help employees work smarter by promoting best practices, automation, and effective tool usage.
• Act as an extension of the VP of IT by reinforcing standards and consistent practices across the organization.

• Lead or support IT initiatives related to capacity expansion, new construction, facility upgrades, and equipment expansion across manufacturing and warehouse environments.
• Act as the IT liaison for plant changes, working closely with Operations, Engineering, Facilities, and external vendors to ensure technology requirements are identified early and executed with minimal disruption.
• Support new equipment installs, production line changes, and factory layout modifications by coordinating IT and OT readiness.
• Ensure IT and OT infrastructure considerations (network drops, switches, firewalls, wireless coverage, power, labeling, device access, and security requirements) are planned and delivered on schedule.
• Coordinate with OEMs, integrators, and service providers to ensure equipment is properly connected, tested, and supported before go‑live.
• Help…