Packaging Team Manager

The ASR Group family of companies make up the world's largest refiner and marketer of cane sugar. The companies produce a full line of grocery, industrial, food service and specialty sweetener products. Across North America, ASR Group companies operate five sugar refineries, located in California, Maryland, Louisiana, Canada and Mexico. In Europe, ASR Group companies operate sugar refineries in the United Kingdom, Portugal, and, with a joint venture partner, Italy.

The companies also farm sugarcane and own sugar mills in Mexico and Belize. The ASR Group portfolio includes the leading brands Domino, C&H, Florida Crystals, Redpath, Tate & Lyle, Lyle's, Sidul and Whitworths. ASR Group companies also produce and market Tellus, a single-use, compostable tableware and food service product made from plant fibers, including sugarcane.

The function of the Packaging Team Manager is to provide leadership and technical support to direct, facilitate, and coordinate the performance, development, and improvement of the overall operation. This position has the responsibility FOR establishing AND maintaining a capable, continuously improving, high quality work force with focus on improving plant equipment reliability, quality, safety, process, and efficiency at the lowest sustainable cost.

This manager must ensure the team meets or exceeds daily production goals for volume, quality and employee safety.

• Manages and leads a team of supervisors to deliver quality and quantity of production to meet demand.
• Analyze production data from Redzone and PowerBI and implement strategies to improve performance
• Track and report KPIs, including OEE, Waste, Labor Utilization, Downtime, and Safety metrics
• Identify opportunities for cost reduction through process optimization
• Manage departmental budgets and control COGS
• Lead, coach, and develop production supervisors and provide ongoing feedback
• Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement and communicate clear performance expectations
• Oversee production employee across all shifts to ensure each shift has the necessary trained employees to run required lines. Balance skills across shifts to meet production requirements.
• Manage the skills matrix and coordinate the training and up-skilling of the production employees to meet current and future production needs.

• Attend daily huddle meetings to ensure they are delivering robust play calls and communicate priorities
• Manage employee performance, attendance, overtime coverage, and disciplinary actions as required

• Follow Standard Work to achieve production result through employee leadership in a unionized environment

• Directs Production resources and collaborate with the maintenance team to meet all safety, quality, production, health and environmental regulations.
• Ensure the development of sound predictive and preventative maintenance programs which will reduce unplanned shutdowns and continuously improve plant reliability, profitability and product quality.
• Partners with support functions (i.e. Supply Chain, Procurement, Sales, etc.) to meet production demands
• Develops or revises standard operational and working practices

• Conducts regular shift meetings regarding safety, production, quality and other important information.
• Conducts training, monitoring and evaluating employee performance and implementing recommendations to improve employee performance.

• Champion Lean, Six Sigma, and Kaizen initiatives
• Lead continuous improvement projects focusing on OEE, throughput, and waste reduction
• Drive problem-solving methodologies, including Root Cause Analysis, 5 Whys, A3 problem solving, and Fishbone diagrams
• Promote a culture of operational excellence and employee engagement

• Experience in a technical role required (maintenance, engineering and/or operations)
• Minimum of 3-5 years of related management experience, including overseeing supervisors and managing a multi-departmental manufacturing/ production operation.

• Knowledge of Good Manufacturing Practices is required

• Food or beverage production experience strongly preferred.
• Experience designing and driving process improvement in a food (or similar) manufacturing environment

• Bachelor's degree (BA or BS) from a 4-year college or university required.
• Continuous Improvement or quality certification(s) strongly preferred.
• Industrial electric background, computer, PLC programming,…