Description
Position Summary:
The VP, Manufacturing provides enterprise leadership for manufacturing operations across three plants, ensuring safe operations, highest quality, shortest lead time, best on-time delivery, and strong cost performance. This role sets the operating cadence, standards, and talent strategy required to achieve annual business objectives through disciplined execution, continuous improvement, and cross-functional alignment.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead manufacturing strategy and execution across three plants to achieve Safety, Quality, Delivery, Lead Time, and Cost (SQDLC) targets.
- Build a unified "One Team" culture across the Waco sites to improve talent retention, shared services efficiency, and community presence.
- Establish operating plans, KPIs, and management routines (tier meetings, standard work, visual management) that drive consistent performance and accountability across all sites.
- Own manufacturing performance to budget, including labor and overhead, productivity, scrap/rework, inventory, and absorption; identifies actions to close gaps and improve profitability.
- Partner with Finance and plant leadership on forecasting, monthly operating reviews, and corrective action plans to address variances and drive sustainable improvements.
- Ensure a strong safety culture and regulatory compliance across all sites (OSHA and other applicable local/state/federal requirements) with visible leadership and disciplined follow-through.
- Champion Lean/Continuous Improvement and 5S standardization across departments and plants; deploys problem-solving (root cause, corrective action) to improve throughput, quality, and lead time.
- Lead and develop plant leaders and cross-functional manufacturing teams, drives talent selection, succession planning, performance management, training, and engagement.
- Partner with Supply Chain, Engineering, Quality, and Sales to align demand, capacity, materials, and labor plans to meet customer commitments and growth objectives.
- Own equipment uptime and plant readiness across all sites through maintenance strategy, reliability initiatives, and capital planning; prioritizes automation and process capability improvements with clear ROI.
- Ensure each plant sustains strong housekeeping and visual standards through routine Gemba walks, 5S audits, and leader standard work.
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Engineering, Operations Management, or related field required.
- 15+ years of progressive manufacturing leadership, with at least 5 years in a multi-site or Large Plant (500+ headcount) environment.
- Proven experience in matrixed organizations (working with both corporate operations and business unit leadership)
- Deep expertise in High-Mix/Low-Volume environments.
Core Competencies & Behaviors
- Agility: Ability to pivot between high-level strategy and shop-floor tactics.
- P&L Management: Full ownership of manufacturing costs, absorption, and margin expansion.
- Change Management: Experience leading large-scale cultural or operational transformations.
- Digital Literacy: Leveraging ERP and CRM tools for data-driven decisions.
- Supervisory Responsibility:
- Provides leadership and direction for manufacturing operations across three plants, including Production, Quality, Maintenance, Manufacturing Engineering, and Operational Excellence/Continuous Improvement.
- Directs and coaches plant leadership to deliver results through consistent standards, clear expectations, and timely escalation/removal of barriers.
- Owns staffing plans and senior-level hiring decisions for plant leadership roles in partnership with HR, ensuring the organization is structured and resourced to meet current and future business needs.
Environment/Physical Requirements: TheThe ideal candidate must be able to complete all physical requirements of the job with or without reasonable accommodation.
- Prolonged periods sitting at a desk and working on a computer.Must be able to access and navigate each department in the Office and Factory Floor.
