Operations Manager

At Lineage, helping to feed the world is more than a job – it’s a purpose we live every day. Lineage is the world’s largest and most innovative provider of temperature-controlled logistics solutions, with over 20,000 colleagues globally. If you open your fridge freezer, up to 80% of the products you’ll see have passed through a Lineage facility. We support customers who supply schools, restaurants, and many of the UK’s leading retailers by ensuring a consistent and safe food supply.

Our Heywood facility is one of Lineage's flagship automated cold storage operations in the UK, combining cutting-edge warehousing technology with 24/7 logistics capabilities to keep the nation's food supply chain moving. We are currently seeking an Operations Manager to lead this innovative site and play a key role in driving operational excellence, team engagement and the continued success of one of the UK's most advanced cold chain facilities Shift Pattern:
Monday to Friday, 7:00am to 3:00pm (Day Shift). Whilst this role is primarily based on the day shift, a high degree of flexibility is required to meet the needs of the business. As a senior operational leader, you will be expected to provide support across multiple shift patterns to maintain visibility across operations to ensure performance, service, and people leadership standards are consistently achieved.

Salary:
Negotiable depending on experience

• Provide senior operational leadership across the Heywood site, ensuring the safe, compliant, and efficient delivery of all warehouse activities whilst achieving agreed service, productivity, quality, and financial targets.
• Act as the deputy to the General Manager, assuming full site leadership responsibility in their absence and providing strategic direction across all operational functions.
• Lead and oversee multi-shift warehouse operations, managing multiple operational teams and shift patterns to ensure consistent performance, operational continuity, and customer satisfaction 24/7.
• Champion a world-class safety, food safety, and compliance culture, ensuring full adherence to Health & Safety legislation, food hygiene standards, HACCP requirements, and all associated regulatory obligations.
• Drive operational excellence through the development and execution of site-wide continuous improvement initiatives, delivering measurable improvements in productivity, cost control, efficiency, quality, and service performance.
• Lead, coach, and develop a team of operational managers and supervisors, creating a high-performance culture focused on accountability, engagement, succession planning, and talent development.
• Take ownership of workforce planning, labour forecasting, resource allocation, and operational budgets, ensuring optimum utilisation of people, equipment, and facilities.
• Ensure full compliance with all quality, customer, and accreditation standards, including CMI, STS, EHO, and other relevant industry requirements, maintaining robust governance and audit readiness.
• Provide senior oversight of engineering and maintenance activities, managing contractor relationships, planned preventative maintenance programmes, and site infrastructure requirements to minimise operational disruption.
• Monitor and analyse operational KPIs, financial performance, customer metrics, and compliance indicators, identifying trends and implementing corrective actions to deliver continuous improvement.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with key internal and external stakeholders, including Finance, HR, Commercial, Customer Services, Engineering, and Continuous Improvement teams.
• Support the General Manager in delivering site strategy, business objectives, customer growth plans, and operational transformation…