Plant Manager

The Plant Manager is a member of the North America leadership team and is responsible for providing the direction and leadership for the manufacturing site, covering the five strategic pillars: Quality, Cost, Delivery, Environmental-Health-Safety (EHS) and People.  This position is the budget owner for all costs associated with the plant and has a significant impact on the US P&L. The Plant Manager is a leader of people and is responsible for building a strong team within the facility. This position also works cross-functionally in support of new product commercialization and business-building initiatives.

Primary Responsibilities

• The Plant Manager works with Operations, R&D, QA/QC, Procurement, and Planning colleagues to ensure an optimal schedule and then safe, efficient, timely delivery of the schedule
• Lead the development, execution, and monitoring of the operations strategy in line with the overall operational objectives to achieve performance, quality, and safety improvement and ensure the achievement of manufacturing goals
• Ensures production meets or exceeds quality standards by adhering to SOPs, FDA/FSMA, HACCP, GMP, SQF, and OSHA regulations
• Monitors operating specifications of each workstation
• 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
• Ensure adherence to all health and safety policies/protocols and promote a safety culture
• Ensure all plant personnel are operating in compliance with plant and corporate procedures as well as in compliance with all customer and governmental regulations
• Troubleshoots, identifies, and assists in developing solutions for issues affecting production
• Utilize available data including OEE, line speed target, and efficiency and process data to continuously improve productivity, uptime, and reliability
• Leads continuous improvement projects and activities as required. Utilizes TPM and Lean-Six Sigma principles and tools to drive a culture of continuous improvement
• Participates in the capital process including identifying, developing, submitting, and implementing CAPEX projects
• Assist in the development of operational and capital budgets, policies and procedures, and the execution of the same
• 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 (KPIs) for Plant Performance
• Coaches and encourages direct reports to benchmark and implement industry manufacturing best practices to promote continuous improvement every day
• Continually set goals, coach, and hold direct reports accountable for their actions and performance
• Educate and train employees utilizing Lean principles. Monitor employees' work performance and attitude and perform formal reviews as required by policy
• Coach and counsel employees about work-related issues and assist employees to correct job-skill deficiencies
• Report all food safety and quality issues to the immediate Supervisor and/or head of Quality and take immediate action as appropriate within the team
• Coordinates manufacturing activities with all other functions of the organization and suppliers to obtain optimum production and utilization of human resources, machines, and equipment
• Conduct regular meetings with plant staff to ensure operational issues are being communicated and addressed expediently with a common understanding of goals
• Drive employee engagement, training, and development to maximize safety, quality, and productivity
• Managing adherence to budget and labor optimization
• The duties and responsibilities described are not a comprehensive list of all tasks. Additional tasks and duties may be assigned from time to time as necessitated by business needs

Prior Knowledge/Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Manufacturing, or related Business line
• Food/CPG Manufacturing experience is a plus
• Demonstrated use of Lean Continuous Improvement, TQM, and/or Lean tools including six sigma, value stream mapping, root cause / corrective action, Kaizen events, and Kanban workflows
• Knowledge of warehouse management systems, replenishment methodology, and industrial engineering methods/techniques
• Knowledge of master scheduling practices and capacity analysis
• Strong experience in the areas of project management and maintenance
• Proficient in spreadsheets, database, and presentation to include some or all of Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, Power BI and Visio
• Must be experienced in implementing and working with SAP
• Exceptional written & verbal communication skills. Written and verbal Spanish is a plus
• Proven team player, able to work collaboratively at all levels and builds partnerships with cross-functional teams
• Excellent organizational, planning, influence, presentation, and follow-up skills
• Self-motivated and must be persuasive in presenting ideas and managing their implementation
• Experience in SQF audits
• Experience managing a diverse workforce and constructively managing conflicts

Looking for a Career for Good?

Puratos is a global purpose-driven company focused on bringing people together through food innovation for good. We offer a full range of innovative food ingredients and services for the bakery, patisserie, and chocolate sectors, serving artisans, retailers, industrial and food service companies in over 100 countries around the world. Our passion for innovation, pioneering spirit, and core values continue to propel our global ambitions. This coupled with our commitment to our communities is what makes working at Puratos so magical. 

We offer a competitive compensation and benefit package, designed to promote a Happier, Healthier You.  This includes:

• Insurance coverage beginning the first of the month—no extra waiting period to get started
• Immediate 401(k) eligibility including a fully vested matching contribution
• Receive over 5 weeks total of paid time off within your first year of service
• Free life coaches, convenient onsite health exams, 24/7 access to Registered Nurses
• Puratos-paid insurance coverage to protect you and your family including Life and Disability insurance

If you are a solution oriented and analytical thinker with a passion for leading and inspiring people, we invite you to experience the magic of being yourself and join us for “a career for good.”

#LI-ZG1