Plant Manager

Position Title

plant manager

Reports To

vp YEAST Manufacturing

Division

AB Mauri North America

FLSA Status

EXEMPT

Department/

Location:

manufacturing/ MEMPHIS, TN

Position

Objective

The Yeast Plant Manager is responsible for overseeing all aspects of yeast production operations, ensuring the efficient, safe, and cost-effective manufacture of high-quality yeast products. The role requires strong leadership to inspire and develop plant personnel, fostering a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement. The Plant Manager will champion customer-centric practices, ensuring that production processes consistently meet or exceed customer expectations. By working closely with cross-functional teams and leading by example, the Plant Manager will uphold AB Mauri’s standards for quality, safety, and operational excellence, while promoting an environment where people are valued, empowered, and motivated to achieve their best.

Key Result Areas

Performance Standards:

Regulatory Requirements/ Quality Assurance

• Ensure compliance with all food regulatory requirements.
• Ensure food safety and GMP’s are adhered to.
• Maintain superior scores on all third-party audits (AIB, SQF, ASI, customer or similar).
• Ensure all shipped products meet product specifications.
• Ensure due diligence toward all customer complaints.
• Notify Corporate QA about potential withdrawals/recalls of products.
• Coordinate contact with suppliers regarding food safety/quality issues.
• Ensure compliance with all AB Mauri Yeast Quality Management System (YQMS) standards.
  
  

Customer Requirements

• Pass all customer quality audits.
• Pass certification requirements.
• Develop and maintain a productive relationship with the customer service and sales teams.
  
  

Financial Control

• Operate ongoing management cost reports versus budget versus forecast.
• Implement and maintain a 3-year cost reduction plan.
• Complete annual budgets in accordance with defined standards.
• Identify major financial variances and act as appropriate.
  
  

Asset Utilization

• Develop and maintain a 5-year capex plan.
• Target 20% economic (cost reduction) projects.
• Adhere to overall capex budget and cash flow plans.
• Leverage corporate purchasing to obtain best possible costs/terms.
• Maintain a contingency/disaster recovery plan.
• Maintain the productive capacity of the plant and equipment through proper preventive and predictive programs.
  
  

Operations Control

• Ensure plant operations meet defined standards (Production, Engineering, QA/QC, YQMS, HR, Accounting, Purchasing, Maintenance, and Effluent).
• Work with other sites and ABM global and regional yeast technologists to identify, share, and implement best practices.
• Relentlessly execute against defined process standards while fostering a continuous improvement culture.
• Drive improvement using CI tools.
  
  

Environmental Health & Safety

• Oversee and maintain comprehensive health and safety reporting
• Cultivate a proactive health and safety culture
• Develop and maintain environmental safety teams
• Ensure emergency response plans are current
• Ensure regulatory compliance is maintained.
  
  

Performance Standards

Communication

• Maintain site wide communication plan to include:
  
  

Meetings - site, leadership, department

Scorecards - ensure completion and posting.

Status reports - period, weekly and event driven.

Leadership

• Establish site priorities to deliver high corporate standards of presentation and leadership across operations.
• Demonstrate innovation in practice to deliver high value.
• Operate to “best practices” in group.
• Champion the site’s efforts to improve overall organizational capability and effectiveness as well as site/department KPI’s.
  
  

Human Resource Management

• Ensure management functions are completed including recruiting, performance evaluations, conducting staff meetings and taking corrective action as necessary.
• Responsible for maintaining proper staffing levels, employee performance evaluations, discipline, and employee commendation.
• Provide leadership for employees through effective motivation, communication, coaching, training, and development.
• Ensure the succession plan is complete and development programs are in place.
• Consult with Human Resources as appropriate on labor, training, and development issues.
• Partner with HR in delivering favorable collective bargaining agreements at plant level.
• Comply with HR policies and procedures.
• Comply with relevant employment laws.
  
  

Other

• Other duties as assigned.
  
  

Behaviors

Intellect/Judgment

• People - experience in working with individuals and teams to develop talent.
• Business Acumen- how company operates, financially and strategically within industry. Adept at analyzing key business drivers & build credibility based on business knowledge.
• Systems Thinking - understands a completely integrated business system and how all aspects of the system interact. Can identify the root cause of problems.
  
  

Influence

• Clear view of own strengths & weaknesses and uses that information to build and maintain relationships.
• Adapt style to suit the situation & audience to achieve best outcome.
• Persuasive and credible, across all levels of the organization.
• Inspires others to achieve exceptional results.
• Shares knowledge freely and builds capability in others through coaching & training.
• Creates and maintains strong relationships; builds both internal and external networks.
• Self-reliant & a self-starter who takes ownership and responsibility for own actions.
• Probing questioning style, balancing reflection with timely decision making.
  
  

Motivation/Drive

• Outcome focused and wishes to deliver exceptional results.
• Seeks to continuously develop self, others and the organization.
• Is optimistic and resilient in the face of obstacles, relentless in pursuing goals.
  
  

Values

Ambitious

• Sets high standards and strives to achieve stretch targets.
• Takes accountability, delivers on promises.
• Seeks and evaluates new opportunities and challenges beyond daily tasks.
  
  

Collaborative

• Is a committed team player, proactively working with others to deliver results.
• Excellent communicator, displaying great message delivery and active listening skills.
• Builds and maintains productive relationships.
  
  

Accountable

• Acts with integrity, challenging inappropriate behaviors if they arise
• Open and honest in approach.
• Delivers results against expectations.
  
  

Customer Centric

• Supports Operations and Sales to provide a high quality, consistent product, delivered on time and in full.
  
  

Innovative

• Works to “find a better way”.
• Challenges the status quo.
• Recommends new approaches to deliver against expectations.
  
  

Qualifications

a combination of the listed skills and knowledge is preferred

Required

• Bachelor’s degree in any of the following areas: Engineering, Chemistry, Biology, Microbiology, Operations Management or equivalent
• Minimum 15 years manufacturing experience with minimum 6 years in a Plant Manager role in the fermentation, chemical or pharmaceutical industry.
• At least 2 different Plant Manager assignments with at least 2 companies.
• Hands on leadership roles in continuous improvement (Lean 6 sigma certified) and plant maintenance.
  
  

Preferred

• Food manufacturing experience.
• Excellent mechanical aptitude and strong oral / written communication skills.
• Good coaching skills and demonstrated success in developing / mentoring people.
• Demonstrated success in improving quality, reducing costs, EHS performance.
• Experience with Resource Scheduling and in both developing and meeting a budget.
• Must have strong prioritization and analytical skills.
• Understanding of cost accounting principles, overall cost drivers, and business principles.
• Strategic planning skills and ability to set strategic objectives for the facility as well as drill down to individual objectives.
• Excellent leadership and problem-solving skills.
• Experience with Quality Management Systems (PLM, Data Historian, SQF, ISO 9000 / 22000 experience a plus).
• Food Safety/HACCP training.
• Understanding of food hygiene procedures and food safety requirements. Experience in process control and project engineering.
• Excellent PC skills in Excel, Word and PowerPoint.
• Experience using and implementing automation into manufacturing operations.
• Possess the ability to use data and leading-edge tools to understand manufacturing efficiency to track and drive performance.