Plant Director

Director, Plant

 

Position Summary

As a key member of the leadership team, will direct and lead all aspects of operations of a complex, multi campus facility, including safety, production, quality, engineering, supply chain and customer service. The plant director has full P&L accountability and drives continuous improvement initiatives to ensure operational excellence, customer satisfaction and profitability.   This role ensures achievement of key business objectives by fostering a safe, high-quality, and efficient work environment while meeting regularly compliance and customer satisfaction.

 

Principle Responsibilities

• Foster a culture where safety, quality, schedule, and cost are prioritized with a continuous improvement mindset.
• Drive rapid, significant, and sustainable improvements in Safety, Quality, Delivery, and Cost metrics.
• Oversee daily operations of the plant, ensuring optimal safety, quality, delivery, cost, and inventory performance.
• Develop and execute strategic plans aligned with company goals, including compliance with ISO, FDA, EPA, OSHA, and other regulatory requirements.
• Lead and manage New Product Introduction (NPI) execution, ensuring on-time, on-quality, and on-cost results.
• Ensure effective allocation of resources to meet customer-driven priorities and optimize operational efficiency.
• Oversee financial performance, including budgeting, forecasting, revenue planning, cost control, and profitability improvement.

• Identify opportunities to reduce costs in direct and indirect labor, manufacturing overhead, and inventory levels while enhancing operational efficiency.
• Manage capital expenditure planning to align with company technology needs, capacity, and cash flow requirements.

• Establish and review key operational metrics and performance indicators to ensure alignment with business objectives.
• Drive a Lean Operating System culture (5S, SMED, TPM, etc.) and lead the roadmap for achieving breakthrough performance.
• Conduct regular KPI reviews with the plant team to ensure goal attainment and prioritize implementation strategies.
• Continually benchmark and implement best practices to enhance efficiency and performance.

• Build, coach, and mentor a high-performance team, fostering morale and professional growth across multiple functions.
• Develop leadership and management capabilities within the team to sustain long-term success.
• Establish and maintain strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders, including customers, suppliers, regulators, and corporate teams.
• Collaborate with sales, marketing, engineering, and other functional teams to deliver exceptional products and customer satisfaction.

Qualification Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in business, engineering, or related field.  MBA preferred.
• 8+ years manufacturing operations leadership experience  
• Demonstrated track record of significant performance improvement through the successful development of a lean culture, and implementation of the tools.  
• Demonstrates implementation and/or ongoing development of a lean operating culture forms the basis for development of a sustainable competitive advantage.   
• Strong developer of people and teams, believing it a critical component in driving organizational change and effectiveness. 

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities: 

• Highly customer responsive and entrepreneurial 
• Resourceful, combining strong manufacturing and technical abilities with good overall management acumen 
• Strong financial acumen 
• Effectively deploys resources to key priorities 
• Has, and sets, high expectations for him/herself and the organization; driven by metrics and countermeasures  
• Ability and passion to lean operating system culture 
• Selects great people and makes changes quickly when required 
• Ability to create followership and lead an organization through significant change and improvement  
• Tough‐minded but a welcome team member 
• Strong communication skills, both verbal and written, and the ability to effectively   communicate throughout all levels of the organization 
• Possesses a high sense of urgency 
• Low‐Ego/High‐Confidence 
• Thinks expansively/innovatively and targets breakthrough performance, not simply incremental gain 
• Is highly autonomous and self‐directed 
• High degree of credibility to be convincing and persuasive 
• Medical device industry experience, a plus