What are the responsibilities and job description for the Manufacturing Engineering Manager position at audia?
At Audia Plastics, our values of integrity, collaboration, safety and innovation shape the way we work every day. We’re seeking a Manufacturing Engineering Manager to guide our engineering team and partner with operations to deliver world-class quality, efficiency, and performance.
This role is about more than managing processes — it’s about coaching people, solving problems, and championing improvement initiatives that make a real difference on the plant floor. You’ll be empowered to drive continuous growth, foster teamwork, and create solutions that support both our business goals and our people. Our state-of-the-art facility in LaFayette, GA was built in 2016 and is now the largest producing plant in the Audia family of companies. This flagship plant is a blueprint for our continued growth year over year.
If you’re motivated by leading with purpose and delivering results, this is your opportunity to grow your career with a company that values excellence and long-term success.
Reporting to the Plant Manager, this position is responsible for the leadership, direction, and performance of the Engineering activities within a plastics manufacturing plant in accordance with the Audia Values, most notably Safety. This position is responsible for supporting the plant operations team to identify and implement improvement activities related to process, quality, safety, responsiveness and cost.
This is a leadership position that will actively model the Audia Safety Way and will be the standard keeper for operational excellence. They will take a hands-on approach to coaching and teaching the operations teams, spending a portion of their day leading from the plant floor.
Duties and Responsibilities:
- Lead the process engineering team by assigning, managing and providing resources for their team members to achieve plant metrics.
- Utilize the strength of their engineering team to achieve high product quality, customer experience and operational efficiency.
- Identify and implement corrective actions for customer complaints and internal product build failures.
- Lead the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) process, utilizing their process engineering team, but including all key stakeholders. Help the plant achieve their waste reduction and rate goals.
- Responsible for proactively representing Engineering in product/process deviations.
- Drive and implement key initiatives (Lean, Visual Factory, problem solving, etc.).
- Champion the pre-trial planning process to ensure the safe and reliable execution of new product samples and scale-ups.
- Work cross-functionally and across facilities to support learning and continuous improvement of the organization.
- Lead future plant growth and continuous improvement projects.
- Lead commissioning/validation of new equipment and processes.
- Develop and manage the Engineering activities through a department level business plan.
- Drive cost reduction initiatives related to manufacturing operating costs.
- Actively participate in the plant safety processes and emulate the Audia Safety Way.
- Perform job duties safely and in compliance with documentation outlined in the Safety, Health & Environmental system.
- Support all other company objectives in safety, growth, people, quality, capacity and productivity in compliance with the Quality Management System.
- Demonstrate mobility to support best practice meetings, joint site problem solving, and global impact.
- Minimum travel 5%
Training, Skills, and Education:
- Bachelor’s Degree in a science or engineering field required.
- Minimum of 7 years of manufacturing engineering experience required; preferred is 10 years with at least 3 years already managing a team, ideally in plastics manufacturing.
- Demonstrated ability driving continuous improvement in an operations environment, Preferred Lean/Six Sigma quality leadership experience.
- Experience in a safety focused culture required.
- Ability to work in a dynamic work environment and solve problems using data and critical thinking.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
- Ability to support 24/7 operation as required.
Working Conditions (onsite):
- Manufacturing and Office Environment.
