Compensation: $76,000 – $90,000 base salary, with potential flexibility for an exceptional candidate
Employment Type: Exempt, Full-Time
Position Overview
We are seeking a hands‑on 2nd Shift Production Supervisor to lead and grow an expanding manufacturing operation in Columbia, SC. This is a unique opportunity for a technically minded supervisor who enjoys working in a high-mix, low-volume manufacturing environment where priorities can change quickly and every day brings a new challenge.
This is not a traditional high-volume production supervision role. Approximately half of the operation's part numbers may only be produced once or twice, often in quantities of just 10–20 pieces. The ideal candidate will be comfortable working through ambiguity, troubleshooting problems, analyzing production data, and making decisions with limited information.
The Production Supervisor will lead second-shift operations while also playing a hands‑on role in production problem‑solving, employee development, data analysis, and continuous improvement.
What You’ll Do
- Lead and supervise second‑shift manufacturing operations.
- Conduct effective first‑shift to second‑shift handoffs, ensuring priorities, action items, and production requirements are clearly communicated.
- Assign work, resources, and priorities to ensure production goals are met.
- Troubleshoot production and technical issues directly on the manufacturing floor.
- Analyze production data to identify issues, trends, inefficiencies, and opportunities for improvement.
- Review labor and material costs, standard‑versus‑actual performance, and production variances.
- Work within an ERP system to monitor and analyze manufacturing information.
- Export ERP data into Excel and organize, analyze, and "slice and dice" information to identify trends and opportunities.
- Coach employees, provide constructive feedback, and maintain accountability.
- Handle progressive discipline when necessary.
- Identify employee training gaps and coordinate appropriate development.
- Work closely with Product Line Leaders, Quality, Engineering, CI/Operations, and Plant Leadership.
- Support manufacturing processes including CNC machining, forming, welding, cutting, slitting, and plating.
- Participate in hiring and help build out the growing second‑shift team.
- Potentially participate in NPI and R&D‑related projects.
- Take ownership of second‑shift execution while knowing when issues require escalation.
Manufacturing Environment
The operation is a high-mix, low-volume, make-to-order/engineer-to-order manufacturing environment producing highly engineered metal components with tight tolerances.
The facility utilizes a combination of manual, semi‑automated, and automated manufacturing processes, including:
- CNC machining
- Metal trimming and feature machining
- Press forming
- Spin forming
- Cutting
- Welding
- Plating
- Custom forming operations
This environment requires someone who is comfortable learning complex manufacturing processes and jumping in to understand what is happening on the floor rather than managing exclusively from an office.
What We’re Looking For
Required Qualifications
- 3+ years of manufacturing supervisory or leadership experience.
- Strong manufacturing or production floor experience.
- Comfortable working with production data and analyzing manufacturing performance.
- Formulas
- Sorting and filtering
- Data organization
- Data analysis
- Experience analyzing labor and material costs, production variances, or standard‑versus‑actual performance.
- Ability to learn and work within an ERP system.
- Strong troubleshooting and problem‑solving abilities.
- Experience coaching employees and holding team members accountable.
- Comfortable working independently on second shift.
- Ability to adapt to changing priorities and an environment where processes and requirements can vary from day to day.
Preferred Qualifications
- CNC machining or precision manufacturing experience.
- Engineering or Continuous Improvement experience.
- Metalworking experience.
- Experience with forming, welding, slitting, or plating.
- High‑mix/low-volume manufacturing experience.
- NPI or R&D experience.
- Associate's or Bachelor's degree.
The Ideal Candidate
The strongest candidate will be more than a people manager. You should be someone who can lead a team, troubleshoot manufacturing issues, work with production data, analyze variances, and turn information into action.
Candidates with backgrounds in CNC machining, engineering, precision manufacturing, metalworking, plating, or Continuous Improvement may be particularly well suited for this opportunity.
You will thrive in this role if you are:
- Hands‑on and technically curious.
- Resilient and adaptable.
- Comfortable with ambiguity.
- A strong critical thinker and problem solver.
- Comfortable learning new systems and processes.
- Positive and constructive when working with employees.
- Comfortable providing and receiving feedback.
- Willing to hold people accountable.
- Able to recognize when an issue needs to be escalated.
- Comfortable working independently.
- Willing to jump in and learn the manufacturing operation.
Why Join?
- Opportunity to help build and scale an expanding second‑shift operation.
- Significant autonomy and ownership over second‑shift execution.
- Opportunity to participate in hiring as the team grows.
- Exposure to a highly specialized manufacturing environment.
- Work with a wide range of manufacturing technologies and processes.
- Opportunity to contribute to Continuous Improvement, NPI, and potentially R&D initiatives.
- Ability to leverage technical or engineering expertise beyond traditional production supervision.
- Day‑shift training provided before transitioning to second shift.
- Exempt position with no expected overtime.