Manufacturing Manager

Job Summary: 

Lead strategy and daily operations for a low-volume, high-mix machine shop, ensuring safe, cost-effective, high-quality, and on-time production. This hands-on role advances Lean continuous improvement and aligns people, processes, and resources with customer, operational, and financial objectives.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Help define and execute short and long-term manufacturing strategies aligned with business objectives.
• Direct daily machine-shop operations, including production planning, scheduling, job priorities, staffing, workflow, and resource allocation.
• Adjust production schedules and resources to reduce bottlenecks and lead times while meeting customer delivery commitments.
• Ensure work meets safety, quality, customer, drawing, regulatory, and schedule requirements; establish and enforce standard work and shop policies.
• Train, coach, cross-train, supervise, and evaluate shop personnel while fostering accountability, teamwork, problem solving, and continuous improvement.
• Apply Lean and Six Sigma methods, including 5S, SMED, standard work, and kaizen, to improve flow, productivity, setup and cycle times, quality, and cost.
• Provide technical leadership for CNC machining, programming, milling, tooling, work holding, troubleshooting, and manufacturability.
• Review work orders, drawings, specifications, and technical documentation; partner with Engineering on process design, tooling, gauging, and production readiness.
• Evaluate and justify capital equipment, automation, machine-monitoring, scheduling, and capacity investments.
• Coordinate preventive maintenance, repairs, upgrades, and maintenance records to maximize equipment availability and minimize downtime.
• Manage inventories of raw material, tooling, supplies, and equipment, and monitor supplier and outside-service performance.
• Collaborate with Sales, Engineering, Quality, Maintenance, Supply Chain, Logistics, Finance, and Customer Service to support order execution and resolve risks.
• Use production data and reporting systems to track safety, quality, delivery, cost, scrap, rework, setup and cycle time, lead time, equipment uptime, and labor utilization; implement corrective actions as needed.
• All other duties, as assigned.

Deliver strong safety, quality, and on-time performance; reduce lead time, setup time, scrap, and waste; improve equipment and labor utilization; and develop a flexible, cross-trained team capable of responding to changing priorities. This job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice.

Minimum Qualifications:

Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Manufacturing/Industrial Engineering, or Operations Management preferred; associate degree/technical credential, or equivalent relevant experience considered.
• Ten or more years of progressive manufacturing experience, including at least five years leading people and operations in a low-volume, high-mix, job-shop, precision-machining, or comparable environment.
• Demonstrated success improving safety, quality, delivery, productivity, and cost in an onsite production environment.
• Substantial experience with CNC machining, milling, programming, tooling, work holding, and preventive maintenance.
• Experience applying Lean, Six Sigma, kaizen, setup-reduction, and waste-reduction methods.
• Working knowledge of ISO-based quality systems and applicable safety, environmental, and regulatory requirements, with experience in budgeting, capacity planning, capital justification, and operational reporting.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Strong leadership, coaching, change-management, conflict-resolution, and team-development skills in a hands-on production environment.
• Ability to interpret engineering drawings, blueprints, GD&T, technical specifications, work orders, and process documentation and provide manufacturability feedback.
• Ability to manage complex schedules, competing priorities, multiple work orders, urgent requests, and changing operational demands across shifts.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Word and Excel and the ability to use operational data to make decisions.
• Knowledge of CAD/CAM and CNC programming systems; familiarity with common machine controls and machining materials is preferred.
• Excellent communication, presentation, analytical, organizational, project-management, problem-solving, and troubleshooting skills.

Work Environment:

Manufacturing environment. The employee may be occasionally exposed to moving equipment, mechanical parts in motion, risk of shock and other hazards associated with a manufacturing environment such as overhead cranes, welding, machining, painting etc. 

The employee is regularly required to stand, walk, sit, use hands, reach, talk, hear, climb or balance, stoop, kneel, reach, stretch, crouch. Lift up to 50 pounds. Vision requires close focus, distance vision, peripheral vision, color vision, depth perception and focus adjustment