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Manager, Operations (APF Manufacturing)

Draper
Petersburg, United Statesfull_timeVerifiedPosted 10 Jun 2025

About the role

Overview:

Draper is an independent, nonprofit research and development company headquartered in Cambridge, MA. The 2,000+ employees of Draper tackle important national challenges with a promise of delivering successful and usable solutions. From military defense and space exploration to biomedical engineering, lives often depend on the solutions we provide. Our multidisciplinary teams of engineers and scientists work in a collaborative environment that inspires the cross-fertilization of ideas necessary for true innovation. For more information about Draper, visit www.draper.com.

Job Description Summary:

The Manager, Operations (APF Manufacturing) works within production operations, managing workflow and production within the facility to support manufacturing and deliveries to customers. The Manager is experienced in personal and workflow management, including production planning within a technical fabrication environment, such as electromechanical, microelectronics, semiconductor, or MEMS fields. This includes integrating information from supply chain through program deliverable needs. This leadership role displays excellent analytical skills and the ability to work effectively in a fast-paced setting with cross functional team members.

Job Description:

Duties/Responsibilities

  • Responsible for daily tasking of people and facility to support operations.  Has managerial control (hiring/ firing/discipline/performance reviews) of their people.
  • Budgetary responsibility for operational areas to manage product and support costs to meet goals. Drive operational efficiencies without negative impact to safety, schedule or quality.  
  • Supervise ten or more Technicians, including scheduling daily work assignments, performing annual evaluations, and participating in the hiring process as needed. Can supervise salaried employees
  • Collaborate and direct process engineering staff to meet production schedules, update priorities and optimize workflow.
  • Collaborate and organize information with other operational functions, including planning for materials/consumables, preventative maintenance for lab equipment, and ensuring employees are current with required training and certification.
  • Day to day management and communication of production needs to internal and external stakeholders.
  • Foster teamwork and accountability with staff.
  • Work directly with cross functional teammates, including quality, engineering, supply chain to identify and minimize program execution risks and provide constructive feedback and alternative approaches for consideration
  • Identify and mitigate production risks, including bottleneck and throughput challenge areas.
  • Including directing troubleshooting teams and organizing solutions to issues.
  • Use Lean Manufacturing principles to improve manufacturing operations related to yield, on-time delivery, and cutting costs.
  • Responsible for strategy of production operations including influence of support entities to drive continuous improvement and growth of the business. Support positive customer engagements with internal/external stakeholders and new product introductions.
  • Performs other duties as assigned.

Skills/Abilities

  • Organizational talent, results-oriented with pro-active attitude, a problem-solver.
  • Possess excellent organization, prioritization, and written/oral communication skill.
  • Ability to brief both technical and non-technical audiences.
  • Display good interpersonal skills required to communicate clearly with internal team and customers, experience as area lead or supervisor.
  • Be self-motivated, able to adapt to changing priorities and must thrive in a multidisciplinary team environment.
  • Working knowledge of and experience in implementing Lean Manufacturing / 6-Sigma principals to effect capability improvements.
  • Ability to project, budget, and track small scale projects.
  • Ability to learn and interact with Engineering Resource Planning tools; experience with Eyelit MES or FactoryLogix MES a plus.
  • Experience with lean manufacturing, continuous improvement practices, and statistical process control.

Education

  • Bachelor’s degree in a technical discipline, Manufacturing, Industrial engineering preferred or equivalent experience in a technical operational management role will be considered.

Experience

  • Minimum of 10 years operational experience, 5+ years of supervisory experience.
  • Technical experience with semiconductor wafer fab environment or microelectronics a plus.

Additiona

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Company

Draper

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