Technical Manager

Georgia-Pacific is seeking a Technical Manager for our new lumber mill in Warrenton, GA. The Technical Manager will utilize leadership, influence, operations experience, and communication abilities to analyze key performance data on process, product, and equipment to identify strategic improvements that create value. This position provides process engineering oversight for the entire manufacturing process, reliability to improve quality, increase production and yield, and eliminate waste. The Technical Manager is responsible for working with team members at all levels to capture strategic value opportunities and implementing operating practices to improve the mills overall competitive position.  The primary responsibility of this position will be quality oversight for the entire facility focused on the creation and implementation of sustainable processes to extract the most value from our raw material.

Our Warrenton facility is a new state-of-the art lumber mill that opened in the Fall of 2019.  This is an exciting opportunity to work in a high efficiency and technologically advanced lumber mill.   GP Warrenton produces Southern Pine dimension lumber, the workhorse of the building industry.  It is an affordable, strong, durable softwood that is excellent for pressure treating, light frame construction, general utility framing, studs, pallets, crafting, and floor and roof trusses. Georgia-Pacific employees strive for safety and health excellence while achieving an injury free workplace. Warrenton is approximately 45 miles West of Augusta, GA and 110 miles East of Atlanta, GA.

• Supervise, coordinate, and support value creation and production efforts by analyzing process performance and developing key metrics to promote process improvement in safety, production, quality, value, yield, and cost performance.
• Work with other departments (Integrated Planning, Sales and Marketing, Wood Supply) to ensure mill optimization parameters are set to maximize value creation.
• Be a safety role model and show a high level of safety awareness and help drive a culture based on continuous improvement in safety.
• Actively promote and develop forward looking practices, procedures and techniques that foster an operating posture that models' “perfect” operations of all machine centers.  
• Develop, analyze, and report appropriate performance metrics that evaluate machine center/department/mill performance. Identify improvement opportunities, work with the appropriate team members to execute, and track the success of change efforts.  
• Troubleshoot for equipment problems when optimizing and/or positioning equipment is not performing correctly.  
• Continuously evaluate machine performance in the mill through daily analysis, checks, calibrations, and proactive approaches.   
• Institute recovery control measures and monitoring procedures to minimize fiber loss due to out-of-control processes.  
• Work with outside vendors and technicians as required to maintain mill optimization systems.  
• Communicate constantly with controls technicians on opportunities to improve mill flow, reduce process variation, and improve machine execution.  
• Provide technical assistance to all computer optimization systems in the mill.  
• Promote quality standards as defined by governing agency and Georgia Pacific lumber standards.
• Actively prevent quality issues by managing QC processes and educating operations. 
• Manage and supervise the Quality control team and their development opportunities.
• Conduct new product development and testing.  
• Routinely identify and implement cost-saving opportunities in the board manufacturing process.
• Track, prioritize, and assign responsibilities for process improvement projects that improve EH&S, quality, throughput, and product costs.
• Interface with and maintain strong working relationships with production and maintenance teams. Provide leadership to troubleshoot operating and maintenance issues affecting quality or production. 
• Continuously improve the operation by staying current with innovative technologies, implementing best practices, and modelling continuous process improvement initiatives.
• Be a key and active member of the mill’s CI process. 

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, business, or economics
• Lumber manufacturing experience in a leadership technical/process optimization role 
• Six Sigma or Lean Manufacturing certification