Plant Director

The Plant Director is a member of the Operations leadership team responsible for providing direction and leadership for the plant covering the five strategic pillars: Quality, Cost, Delivery, Environmental-Health-Safety (EHS) and People. This role has budget ownership for all costs associated with the plant and has significant impact on the US P&L. The Plant Director is a leader of people responsible for building a strong team within the Pennsauken facility. This position works cross-functionally in support of new product commercialization and business building initiatives. The Plant Director will oversee the rollout of the operational excellence program, provide strong leadership and change management to drive performance results and to shape the future program.

 

Primary Responsibilities

• Collaborate with Operations, R&D, QA/QC, Procurement and Planning colleagues to ensure an optimal schedule and safe, efficient, timely delivery of the schedule
• Ensures production meets or exceeds quality standards by adhering, but not limited to SOPs, FDA/FSMA, HACCP, GMP, SQF and OSHA regulations
• Monitors operating specifications of each workstation. Responds to and troubleshoots abnormalities in daily operations
• Prioritizes and assists in defining maintenance requirements
• Regularly leads employee meetings for regular business updates including safety, quality, cost and customer service performance and priorities with all production employees
• Troubleshoots, identifies and assists in developing solutions for issues affecting production thereby delivering quality product in a safe manner on time, every time at the lowest cost
• Leads continuous improvement projects and activities as required; utilizes regularly TPM and Lean-Six Sigma principles and tools to drive a culture of continuous improvement
• Develops a comprehensive plan to raise the level of performance within the plant
• Participates in the capital process to include identifying, developing, submitting and implementing CAPEX projects
• Implements production control systems consistent with lean materials flow systems, including pull systems, Kanban, and level scheduling
• Manages Daily/Weekly/Monthly reporting on Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) for Plant Performance
• Leverages SAP as a way to manage the business
• Sets goals, coaches, and holds direct reports accountable for their actions and performance
• Coaches and encourages direct reports to benchmark and implement industry manufacturing best practices to promote continuous improvement every day
• Develops and implements a plan to continuously increase productivity to consistently deliver lowest total cost of production
• Develops and implements effective root cause - corrective actions within the Manufacturing function
• Food safety is a key accountability for this position; report all food safety and quality issues to immediate Supervisor and/or head of Quality and take immediate action as appropriate within the team as defined by Quality procedures

 

 

Prior Knowledge/Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Manufacturing Management, or other related field
• At least 6 years experience in operations management; preferably in a food/beverage industry
• Demonstrated use of Continuous Improvement, TQM and/or Lean tools including six sigma, value stream mapping, root cause / corrective action, Kaizen events and Kanban work flows.
• Must have knowledge of warehouse management systems, replenishment methodology and industrial engineering methods/techniques including bills of materials and routings, inventory control techniques, materials logistics and flow - FIFO, traffic management and ERP/MRP practices and techniques.
• Knowledge of master scheduling practices and capacity analysis.
• Experience in dealing with a unionized workforce.
• Strong experience in the areas of project management and maintenance.
• Proficient in spreadsheet, database and presentation including Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint and Visio.