Plant Operations Leader - Safety & Quality

Pilot Chemical Company; Cincinnati (OH); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Pilot Chemical Company in Cincinnati seeks a Plant Manager for the Lockland facility to lead safe, compliant, and cost-efficient operations. You will set operating cadence, foster a culture of safety and environmental compliance, and align production, quality, maintenance, logistics, and people development with site goals.

This role requires visible floor leadership, strong technical judgment, and disciplined execution of management systems, with cross-functional partnership across EHS&S,

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering (Chemical Engineering preferred) or equivalent technical leadership experience.
• Minimum 12 years of professional experience, with at least 5 years leading operations in a multi-product chemical manufacturing environment.
• Strong knowledge of OSHA, EPA, PSM, RMP, DHS, Responsible Care, and quality-management systems.
• Proven ability to lead safety-sensitive operations, develop people, manage budgets, and drive continuous improvement.

Responsibilities

• Safety, health, environmental, and security leadership: Own site safety performance and ensure compliance with OSHA, EPA, PSM, RMP, DHS, Responsible Care, and internal EHS&S requirements.
• Operational execution: Direct daily manufacturing, maintenance, logistics, and support activities to meet customer commitments, production schedules, product quality, and cost targets.
• Quality and customer performance: Act as the site quality management representative, maintain ISO 9001 discipline, reduce nonconforming product and customer complaints, and improve on-time shipment and perfect-order performance.
• Asset reliability and maintenance: Improve equipment uptime through preventive and predictive maintenance, disciplined work execution, spare-parts planning, housekeeping, and debottlenecking.
• Financial and resource management: Manage site operating expenses, labor, utilities, repairs and maintenance, production supplies, scrap, and capital plans to deliver budget commitments and improve total delivered cost.
• People leadership: Lead, coach, and develop a team of six direct reports and 18-24 indirect employees; build capability and morale.
• Continuous improvement: Use data, root-cause analysis, Lean principles, and structured problem solving to improve safety, quality, yield, reliability, productivity, inventory performance, and working capital.
• Cross-functional collaboration: Partner with Commercial, Integrated Supply Chain, Engineering, EHS&S, Quality, Accounting, and other Plant Managers to align site execution with company strategy and customer needs.

Skills

Safety leadership

Cross-functional collaboration

Lean and Six Sigma

Communication skills

Education

Bachelor’s degree in engineering (Chemical Engineering preferred)

Lean/Six Sigma certification

Tools

ERP systems

ISO 9001

Job description

Pilot Chemical Company in Cincinnati seeks a Plant Manager for the Lockland facility to lead safe, compliant, and cost-efficient operations. You will set operating cadence, foster a culture of safety and environmental compliance, and align production, quality, maintenance, logistics, and people development with site goals.

This role requires visible floor leadership, strong technical judgment, and disciplined execution of management systems, with cross-functional partnership across EHS&S,