Production Manager

Unbox Your Potential: Our customers see us as the industry leader for trusted, high quality food service essentials and supply chain solutions – and our employees see the value in what they do each day. We offer a culture supported by integrity, growth, relationships, and excellence.  We’re looking for a Production Manager at Ross & Wallace – are you ready to explore your career with us?

The Production Manager is the primary production leader responsible for daily manufacturing execution and the performance of production supervisors, team leaders, and operators. This position ensures the production team operates safely, builds quality product, follows the schedule, meets productivity targets, controls labor and overtime, and drives continuous improvement on the production floor. Success in this role is measured by consistent floor leadership, clear accountability, strong communication, improved production performance, and the ability to coach the team to meet Safety, Quality, Delivery, Productivity, and Cost goals.

This is an on-site position Monday through Friday at our Hammond, LA facility.

How you will make an impact:

• Spend a significant amount of time on the production floor coaching supervisors, team leaders, and operators while verifying that production is operating correctly within Safety, Quality, Delivery, Productivity, and Cost goals.
• Lead daily production execution by reviewing the production schedule, staffing plan, machine readiness, line change requirements, material availability, and priority customer orders.
• Hold production supervisors and team leaders accountable for shift performance, schedule attainment, line efficiency, downtime response, labor utilization, and follow-through on assigned actions.
• Ensure responsibilities and accountabilities are clearly defined for all production team members. Establish expectations, monitor progress, provide feedback, and coach employees to meet department goals.
• Drive a teamwork mindset so employees understand the importance of helping across lines, areas, and shifts to meet customer needs and plant goals.
• Respond professionally to oral and written communication. Provide clear direction, actively listen, communicate expectations respectfully, and ensure production updates are timely and accurate.
• Coordinate production line changes required by sales forecast changes, customer demand, production schedule changes, R&D runs, material constraints, or operational priorities.
• Support and participate in plant continuous improvement activities, including problem solving, root cause analysis, standard work, visual management, one-point lessons, and error proofing.
• Maintain acceptable GMP and housekeeping conditions in all production areas and ensure employees follow required safety, quality, food-contact, and operational standards.
• Plan, organize, and direct production operations to achieve effective use of manpower, equipment, materials, and floor space.
• Initiate actions that reduce manufacturing cost through improved labor utilization, reduced downtime, better changeovers, improved line balance, reduced scrap, and stronger schedule adherence.
• Work closely with Maintenance to address equipment issues, downtime trends, preventive maintenance needs, and machine reliability concerns impacting production performance.
• Work closely with Scheduling, Customer Service, Purchasing, Warehouse, Quality, and Maintenance to ensure production plans are realistic, constraints are communicated, and customer requirements are met.
• Review production KPIs daily and use data to identify gaps, assign corrective actions, and verify that improvements are sustained.
• Ensure production employees are trained, cross-trained, and following current work instructions, standard work, and operating procedures.
• Lead production communication meetings and provide clear updates on safety, quality, schedule adherence, downtime, staffing, priorities, and action items.
• Support annual planning by providing input on production staffing needs, overtime, training, equipment constraints, capacity, and improvement opportunities.
• Lead by example through coaching, teaching, mentoring, and consistent follow-up with supervisors, team leaders, and operators.

PRODUCTION MANAGER MEASURABLES