Manufacturing Operations Leader

Manufacturing Operations Leader

Manufacturing Operations Leader is responsible for overseeing day-to-day factory operations, production support, facility readiness, EHS coordination, staffing, budget management, and cross-functional execution for a specialized manufacturing site. This role ensures safe, reliable, and efficient operations while supporting manufacturing, engineering, quality, materials, facilities, finance, and external stakeholder relationships. The role requires a hands-on operational leader with strong technical, manufacturing, financial, and people-management capabilities.

Operations and Manufacturing Support

• Lead and support daily factory operations, production execution, troubleshooting, and issue resolution.
• Responsible for operational performance and improvement of key metrics including safety, quality, delivery, cost and morale. Align area metrics with overall department/value stream goals; organize resources to deliver on these metrics.
• Oversee the daily start-up of production area. Ensure line is properly staffed and manage staffing throughout the day; monitor expected and unexpected absenteeism. Review daily plan with Team Leaders.
• Support production, including technical support, manufacturing troubleshooting, and escalation of production risks.

• Maintain strong understanding of fabrication capabilities, equipment constraints, production flow, and process requirements. Maintain a good technical knowledge of operations; follow the escalation process to address and respond to abnormalities and recommend corrective action as required.

• Coordinate with engineering, quality, maintenance, supply chain, and production teams to remove operational barriers.
• Act as a first responder to Team Leaders and production team members within the production area. Facilitate delegation of issues to appropriate level in escalation process.
• Ensure the Lean manufacturing practices and Escalation Process.
• Support equipment maintenance priorities and ensure production issues are addressed with urgency and discipline.
• Promote standard work, accountability, 5S, and continuous improvement across the facility.

Engineering, Quality, and Technical Systems

• Support project quoting, manufacturing BOMs, standard costs, and technical documentation.
• Use and support GEA systems including Windchill, Agile, Oracle, and related manufacturing / engineering systems.
• Participate in meetings to review department issues. Assist in prioritizing and assigning ownership for open items in assigned production area. Track items to closure and ensure follow-up with key stakeholders.
• Maintain working familiarity with BCR and NPI processes.
• Support quality documentation, audit readiness, UL audits, and corrective action follow-up.
• Help resolve technical issues related to product design, manufacturability, process capability, and production readiness. Lead work team to react aggressively to factory inefficiencies. Drive problem-solving and root cause identification of problems for the production area. Engage all members of escalation team to address and resolve problems, ex. PIE, quality, facilities engineer, etc.

LEADERSHIP & ADMINISTRATION:
Provide active day-to-day leadership, work direction and support for a manufacturing team within a production area.

• Partner with site Human Resources team to ensure fair and consistent administration of all policies, work rules and processes.
• Oversee line staffing and allocate employees to cover absenteeism.

EHS and Compliance Support

• Support LOTO, Job Safety Instructions, SDS management, PPE management, emergency response, and compliance calendar activities.
• Reinforce safe working practices across production, maintenance, facilities, and contractor work.
• Partner with EHS resources to identify hazards, support corrective actions, and maintain compliance readiness.
• Ensure safety considerations are built into production decisions, maintenance work, and facility projects.

QUALITY:
Ensure the product produced on manufacturing line is defect-free and produced according to specification.

• Ensure all quality processes/standards are followed within assigned production area.
• Monitor quality issues on a daily basis and drives the resolution or escalation for any defect.
• Ensure Team Leaders include quality standards in Standardized Work to meet design intent and build in quality.
• Work cross-functionally with multiple stakeholders to address and solve production line quality issues (i.e. Team Leader, engineering, quality).
• Monitor scrap data/reports to drive resolution of scrap issues and work projects to prevent future scrap.

Materials, Supply Chain, and Planning Oversight

• Review and oversee the materials resource responsible for day-to-day inventory, ERP, and material planning activities.
• Monitor inventory levels, material availability, and Oracle / ERP information as needed to support production.
• Support forecasting and production planning by helping evaluate demand, labor, inventory, equipment capacity, and operational…