Department Manager

Your Opportunity as a Department Manager

The Department Manager is responsible for day-to-day direction and oversight for the manufacturing of bakery products and teams. This individual will organize and lead production to ensure that products are produced consistently and efficiently to specified quality and operational standards to be shipped to customers on time. The Department Manager will lead the team to implement best practices and standards to continue to improve and manage to KPI’s.

Location: 1525 Industrial Road Emporia, KS (Hostess Manufacturing Plant)

Work Arrangements: 100% on-site. Day Shift. Flexibility required. Willingness to work off shift (including nights, weekends, and/or holidays) and flow to the work as needed.

In this Role You Will:  

• Responsible for leading an operations department to support the business

• Develop capability and leadership characteristics in Area Leaders, Process Engineers, Controls Leader, and Advanced Technical Leadership

• Responsible for meeting Quality, Safety, Reliability, and Cost targets for plant operations

• Ability to work with all plant functions to ensure all production needs are met

• Coordinate activities to increase Autonomous Maintenance knowledge throughout the plant, utilizing Autonomous Maintenance to improve Operations measures

• Lead and teach complete understanding of overall plant product flow including all inputs, product transformations, and outputs

• Managing and leveraging relationships with R&D and corporate engineering

• Identify and eliminate operations losses; Lead in solving issues to cause and implement improvements

• Manage capital budget/projects to improve Operations measures in the areas of capacity growth, production efficiencies, Quality, and Safety

• Attend FAT sessions to assist in the development of new processes and equipment to ensure it meets objective criteria.

• Set plant direction by contributing to the Plant Leadership team

• Administer any necessary discipline

• Always manage with Basic Beliefs as a foundation and preserves Smucker culture

• Executes effective communication to all levels of the organization

What We are Looking For:  

Minimum Requirements: 

• A High School Diploma or equivalent is required

• At least 5 years of manufacturing operational experience managing people and teams

• 2+ years of manufacturing operational experience

• Priority setting and Problem solving: Demonstrate ability to be decisive, proactive, and strategic in decision making

Additional skills and experience that we think would make someone successful in this role:  

• A bachelor’s degree is preferred (an engineering or technical degree is preferred)

• Food processing or manufacturing experience

• Experience in a high-performance work environment

• Work effectively across organization boundaries and with diverse teams

• Excellent communication (both written and verbal) and listening skills

• Strong organization skills

• Experience directing and managing vendors

• Be available after hours/weekends

Work Environment: This job operates in a manufacturing environment. The noise level in the work environment and manufacturing sites can be high.

Physical Demands:

• Regularly required to talk and hear.  

• Frequently required to stand; walk; use hands and fingers to handle or feel; and reach with hands and arms.

• Occasionally required to sit; climb or balance; and stoop, kneel, crouch or crawl.

• Able to lift objects up to 50 pounds frequently.

• May push and pull heavy equipment

• Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception and ability to adjust focus. 

#LI-JS1

#INDSA

The Right Place for You 

We are bold, kind, strive to do the right thing, we play to win, and we believe in a strong community that thrives together. Our culture is rooted in our Basic Beliefs, and we believe in supporting every employee by meeting their physical, emotional, and financial needs. 

Stay connected with us on LinkedIn® 

We're an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, age, national origin, disability status or protected veteran status.