Plant Operations Leader: Citrus Processing & Lean

The Wonderful Company; Mission (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, Vision, Dental

401k

Education reimbursement

Paid sick, vacation and holiday time

Wonderful Giving program

Job summary

Wonderful Citrus in California seeks a seasoned Plant Manager to oversee daily production, drive throughput, balance quality, maintenance and labor, and lead a team across juice processing and related operations. You will set KPIs, coordinate with supply, quality, engineering, maintenance, and logistics, and manage budgets, safety programs and CAPEX initiatives.

The role requires 8–10 years in manufacturing with 5+ years in leadership, a relevant degree, and travel up to 10%.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent combination of education and significant manufacturing leadership experience.
• 8–10 years of progressive manufacturing experience.
• 5+ years of manufacturing leadership experience.
• Experience managing production operations, employees, budgets and KPIs.
• Strong knowledge of industrial safety, quality systems and manufacturing processes.
• Demonstrated experience improving safety, quality, reliability, productivity and cost.
• Strong analytical, communication and organizational skills.
• Have the ability to travel domestically and internationally (~10%)

Responsibilities

• Own daily plant execution and production schedule; maximize throughput while balancing quality, maintenance and labor requirements.
• Plans and directs production activities and establishes production priorities for products in keeping with effective operations and cost factors.
• Develop budget and cost controls, and obtain data regarding types, quantities, specifications, and delivery dates of parts and equipment ordered.
• Coordinate operations with agriculture/fruit supply, planning, quality, engineering, maintenance, warehouse, logistics and commercial teams.
• Confer with management to establish production KPIs and how they are monitored and reported.
• Maximize juice, pulp, oil and other valuable product recovery from incoming fruit; investigate losses and process inefficiencies.
• Reviews and analyzes production, quality control, maintenance, and operational reports to determine causes of nonconformity with product specifications and operating or production problems.
• Develop and implement operating methods and procedures designed to eliminate operating problems and improve product quality. Ensure these methods are documented and trained as per company standards.
• Conducts meetings to resolve or effectively reach a settlement of grievances and refers unresolved grievances to the human resources department.
• Ensure production data is accurately entered into the ERP systems in a timely manner.
• Lead root-cause analysis and improvement projects; eliminate recurring losses and bottlenecks; promote Lean/CI principles.
• Partner with maintenance to improve equipment reliability; prioritize critical work; ensure preventive/predictive maintenance is executed; reduce emergency work.
• Partner with food safety and quality to ensure compliance with internal polices, complete corrective actions in a timely manner, or any other task required to meet GFSI expectations.
• Lead production; develop supervisors; establish accountability and succession planning.
• Establish a strong safety culture; ensure OSHA compliance; enforce LOTO, confined space, chemical/ammonia, PPE and other programs; drive incident investigations and corrective actions.
• Ensure compliance with HACCP/FSMA, sanitation and GMP programs; maintain audit readiness; ensure deviations are properly controlled and documented.
• Be the subject matter expert for teams for the operations aspect of the business, supporting CAPEX, maintenance and FSQA.
• Effectively present operations related projects, initiatives, performance results, and other key updates to business leadership and employees.

Skills

Manufacturing leadership

Analytical skills

Communication

Organizational skills

Travel ability

Education

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent

Engineering/Food Science degree preferred

Tools

Power BI

Microsoft Excel

Job description

Wonderful Citrus in California seeks a seasoned Plant Manager to oversee daily production, drive throughput, balance quality, maintenance and labor, and lead a team across juice processing and related operations. You will set KPIs, coordinate with supply, quality, engineering, maintenance, and logistics, and manage budgets, safety programs and CAPEX initiatives.

The role requires 8–10 years in manufacturing with 5+ years in leadership, a relevant degree, and travel up to 10%.