ProspectBlue is partnered with a leading retail and athleisure client looking for a Production and Logistics Manager to join its team in Charlottesville, VA

This position will be in person at our client's facility in Charlottesville, VA, headquarters.

Responsibilities :

• Manage team and calendar deadlines to ensure raw materials and production arrive on time.
• Manage cross-functional relationships to ensure our product meets quality and cost requirements.
• Manage factory partner relationships through regular visits to local domestic factories and weekly video calls with import partners.
• Lead cross-functional Supply Chain planning projects focused on the delivery of solutions that meet cost optimization and delivery experience.
• Partner with PD and Design Managers to set seasonal handoff dates.
• Responsible for analyzing lead times and MOQs and sharing this information with Merchandising to affect seasonal buys.
• Create and manage season-specific time and action production calendars with each vendor.
• Work to review seasonal projections alongside each factory’s capacity. Address concerns with Merchandising and share final numbers with factories.
• Serve as the primary communication point for our client's merchandising team to ensure projections and orders are placed by calendar deadlines.
• Oversee the Production team in ensuring that all material orders are placed on time and that logistics/freight is optimized for ocean vs. air.
• Serve as a primary liaison with factories.
• Work to ensure factories adhere to our compliance mandates and quality standards.
• Negotiate production costing in partnership with Product Development.
• Maintain master cost file for Core product utilized by Product Development, Merchandising, and Finance.
• Work with Product Development on new factory sourcing & compliance and help onboard new factories. Introduce new opportunities to diversify our client's vendor portfolio using their extensive knowledge of trade agreements, logistics, and specialty sewing/fabric production capabilities of each region and/or country.
• Ability to forecast sourcing and/or costing challenges due to global current events and political climate and react strategically.
• Primary liaison/partner with accounting to ensure the accuracy of pre-paid inventory balances, timely reconciliation, and payment of invoices.
• Responsible for the on-time delivery of products and prioritization of orders to meet sometimes competing company needs.
• Provide a weekly ETA report to all relevant partners with up-to-date production status for all open orders.
• Oversee the materials and finished goods QC process and ensure damage rates are tracked and within acceptable guidelines.
• Partner with our customer-facing teams to monitor defects once products are in the market.
• Partner with PD to ensure any issues are remedied at the development stage.
• Serve as one of the primary relationship owners with our 3PL, embedding operational excellence into our working methods.
• Manage financial, operational, and business performance analysis of 3PL and transportation segments to achieve annual commitments.
• Monitor and report on key operational metrics to drive continuous improvement in distribution and logistics networks.
• Develop innovative solutions to reduce costs and meet business goals, leveraging data accuracy and industry expertise.
• Serve as liaison between our internal teams and 3PL regarding volume forecasts and capacity constraints.
• Collaborate with 3PL and our internal teams to troubleshoot and resolve operating issues.
• Partner with wholesale and customer service teams to minimize chargebacks.
• Conduct audits of 3PL and Freight providers to ensure adherence to SLAs and rate cards.

Additional Responsibilities

• Provide weekly reporting on the production status of cross-functional partners for all active seasons, with high-level analysis and insights on the weekly production WIP that teams can quickly view and action.
• Provide a production hindsight to cross-functional partners at the end of each season.
• Desire to lead and grow a team, providing clear goals and actively contributing to building a collaborative team environment.
• Work on other relevant projects that may arise.

Qualifications:

8 years experience in fashion apparel production and/or logistics, with experience managing a direct report.

• Domestic and Import production experience required; both accessories and apparel production experience strongly preferred.
• Strong understanding of incoterms and logistics.
• Experience in multi-channel fulfillment operations, including DTC and wholesale.
• Hands-on experience with sourcing, new vendor onboarding, customer/wear-testing/durability, proto sampling, quality control
• Strong knowledge of retail math: margin, cost optimizations, turn, forecasting techniques, operational systems, and contract negotiation techniques
• Strong analytical skillset with the ability & drive to improve processes
• Excellent oral & written communication skills with the ability to communicate strategies across all channels and levels
• Exceptional ability to organize, pay attention to details, and prioritize workload to meet deadlines while being flexible and adaptive to changing priorities
• Must be a strong leader and people manager, as well as a great communicator and cross-functional partner
• Advanced in Excel