Director of Manufacturing & Operations

Confidential Career Opportunities; Lenoir (NC); On-site; USD 130,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Confidential Career Opportunities is seeking a Director of Manufacturing & Operations to own and transform the company’s primary production facility and third-party manufacturing relationships. You will diagnose root causes, build solutions, and establish systems to prevent recurrence, driving measurable, sustained improvements.

This role leads a cross-functional team, manages the budget, and ends up strengthening the operation beyond maintenance—creating an operating system with routines, KPIs,

Qualifications

• 10+ years of progressive manufacturing leadership experience, including full-site operating, budget, and cost-accountability responsibility; multi-site experience is a plus.
• Demonstrated record of building operating systems, routines, and standards where they did not previously exist.
• Demonstrated record of raising the operating standard within an organization, including where that standard was initially resisted.
• Proven turnaround or performance-improvement experience in an underperforming operation.
• Demonstrated ability to understand the financial consequences of operational decisions, including labor, yield, downtime, maintenance, inventory, freight, and capital expenditure.
• Demonstrated ability to manage manufacturing performance quantitatively — builds the measures, reads them, and acts on them.
• Working engineering understanding of plant controls and automation — PLCs, HMIs, VFDs, SCADA, and instrumentation; capable of directing engineering work and challenging vendor claims.

Responsibilities

• Own daily production output and throughput, and maintain clear visibility of performance by line.
• Own the production schedule — build weekly against open orders, hold adherence, sequence to clear backlog, and adjust to reality.
• Own product quality across all sites in scope, including specification conformance and the response when product falls outside it.
• Own shipping and logistics performance — accurate, on-spec, on-schedule outbound fulfillment.
• Establish meaningful line-level performance metrics — planned versus actual production, line rate, uptime and downtime, schedule attainment, yield, labor productivity, quality and rework, backlog, and changeover performance.
• Use those metrics to identify capacity constraints, chronic losses, and the highest-value opportunities for improvement.

Education

Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Operations, Business, or a related field; equivalent operating experience will be considered. Master’s degree in a related field is a plus

Job description

The Director of Manufacturing & Operations owns the company’s manufacturing operations at its primary production facility, along with its third-party manufacturing relationships. The measure of this role is not whether the lines run today. Success means this leader independently identifies issues, diagnoses root causes, builds the solution, drives it to completion, and establishes the systems and accountability necessary to prevent recurrence.

This role is accountable for the performance and continuous improvement of the operation. The Director is expected to identify issues early, diagnose root causes, develop effective solutions, and drive them through implementation to measurable, sustained results.

This is a building and transformation role, not a caretaker role. The operating system of the site — the routines, the measurements, the standards, the cadence — is this leader’s to create and own. Success is measured by the capability of the team and the systems left behind, and by whether the operation is materially stronger than it was found.

SCOPE

This role holds full operational accountability for the facility and leads it through a management team. Scope covers production and daily output, maintenance and equipment reliability, scheduling and production planning, quality, site engineering and capital projects, safety, procurement and materials, inventory, shipping and logistics, site staffing, and site financial performance.

This role also carries full accountability for the company’s third-party manufacturing partners. These are vendor relationships rather than reporting lines: the Director manages their performance and holds them aligned to the goals of the business, without direct authority over their people.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Own daily production output and throughput, and maintain clear visibility of performance by line
• Own the production schedule — build weekly against open orders, hold adherence, sequence to clear backlog, and adjust to reality
• Own product quality across all sites in scope, including specification conformance and the response when product falls outside it
• Own shipping and logistics performance — accurate, on-spec, on-schedule outbound fulfillment
• Establish meaningful line-level performance metrics — planned versus actual production, line rate, uptime and downtime, schedule attainment, yield, labor productivity, quality and rework, backlog, and changeover performance
• Use those metrics to identify capacity constraints, chronic losses, and the highest-value opportunities for improvement

Business & Cost Ownership

• Own the site budget and financial performance, and manage spend against plan
• Know the site’s cost structure in detail and understand the financial consequence of operational decisions, including labor, yield, downtime, maintenance, inventory, freight, and capital expenditure
• Lead operational capital projects from business case through implementation, commissioning, stabilization, and post-project performance verification — engineering owns the technical work, this role owns whether the investment improves the operation
• Own site procurement, raw material sourcing, and the inventory position that protects the schedule
• Generate solutions that fit the company’s cost structure and operating constraints
• Drive continuous improvement that removes recurring problems at root

People, Safety & Team Development

• Own site staffing — close the labor gap and hire against a defined, consistently applied screening standard
• Own site safety culture and compliance, and hold the standard without exception under production pressure
• Enforce HR standards consistently, including attendance and performance expectations
• Build the capability of the leadership team so each function can be left to run without direct intervention
• Hold the team to standard independently and consistently

Third-Party Manufacturing

• Own the operating and commercial relationship with the company’s third-party manufacturing partners
• Hold contract manufacturing performance to agreed volume, quality, cost, and schedule commitments, and keep partners aligned to the business objectives
• Establish the measurement and reporting needed to know the true state of production at a site the company does not control
• Manage the integration of partner-produced volume into the broader production plan

Maintenance & Reliability

• Own equipment reliability, uptime, and maintenance effectiveness, directed through the maintenance team
• Establish the reliability strategy — preventive and predictive maintenance standards, critical-spares strategy, downtime tracking, and the root-cause process required to eliminate chronic equipment failures
• Distinguish between emergency repair, corrective maintenance, and true reliability improvement, and ensure the organization does not solve the same failure twice

HOW THIS ROLE OPERATES

• Builds the operating system — establishes the routines, standards, KPIs, meeting cadence, visual management, and accountability mechanisms the site runs on
• Makes the operation legible — creates the measures and reporting necessary to know the true state of production, reliability, quality, safety, labor, inventory, and cost at any time
• Works from root cause to closure — independently identifies problems, determines why they are occurring, builds the correction plan, assigns ownership, and drives the issue to a defined and measurable resolution
• Manages through the team — delegates real ownership, develops leaders who can operate independently, and removes barriers without taking accountability away from the person responsible
• Operates at director altitude — connects daily operating decisions to customer commitments, financial performance, capacity, and the broader needs of the business while the management team owns the detail
• Decides, communicates, and executes — makes the call, communicates proactively and in structure, commits to the outcome, and does not allow material issues or initiatives to remain unresolved

REQUIREMENTS & QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Operations, Business, or a related field; equivalent operating experience will be considered. Master’s degree in a related field is a plus
• 10+ years of progressive manufacturing leadership experience, including full-site operating, budget, and cost-accountability responsibility; multi-site experience is a plus
• Experience gained in manufacturing environments with a demonstrably high operating standard; disciplined industrial, chemical, or process manufacturing preferred
• Demonstrated record of building operating systems, routines, and standards where they did not previously exist
• Demonstrated record of raising the operating standard within an organization, including where that standard was initially resisted
• Proven turnaround or performance-improvement experience in an underperforming operation
• Demonstrated ability to understand the financial consequences of operational decisions, including labor, yield, downtime, maintenance, inventory, freight, and capital expenditure
• Demonstrated ability to manage manufacturing performance quantitatively — builds the measures, reads them, and acts on them
• Working engineering understanding of plant controls and automation — PLCs, HMIs, VFDs, SCADA, and instrumentation — and of structured improvement methods such as design of experiments and root cause analysis
• Expertise in these areas is not required, but enough understanding to direct engineering work, challenge vendor claims, and know when an answer does not hold up
• Experience managing contract manufacturers, co-packers, or third-party production partners preferred
• Experience leading through a management team, with a track record of developing leaders who operate independently
• Working knowledge of OSHA regulations and demonstrated ownership of site safety performance
• Demonstrated track record of sustained ownership and follow-through, with major initiatives carried from diagnosis through implementation and measurable results
• Self-aware and coachable, paired with the conviction to hold a standard under pressure

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS & WORK ENVIRONMENT

This position requires regular presence on the manufacturing floor. Exposure to industrial dust, production equipment, noise, mechanical, electrical, and hydraulic hazards, and varying temperatures is expected. PPE including safety glasses, steel-toed boots, and hearing protection is required at all times in operating areas. Physical activity may include climbing ladders, working at elevation, lifting up to 50 lbs, and extended periods of standing or walking. Travel is required between company and partner facilities, and occasionally to vendors, suppliers, or customers.