Quality Assurance Manager- USDA/RTE

Food Safety Quality Assurance Manager

Manages FSQA shift supervisors, HACCP Supervisor, others as directed

Position Summary:

This position is responsible for the food safety, quality, and regulatory compliance of the production facility and for enabling the company to have safety and quality assurance purpose and strategy through daily decision making and guidance. The manager will lead the plant FSQA team including hiring, onboarding, and team member development.

Supervisory Responsibilities:

• Ensure a fully staffed facility FSQA team with succession and development plans.
• On-board, train, and retain new staff members.
• Oversee the daily workflow of the department, and in alignment with other functions.
• Partner with cross functional leaders to handle FSQA decision making.

Duties/Responsibilities:

Management

• Serve as the authority for onsite food safety, quality, and regulatory compliance decisions.
• Administer the site prerequisite programs and BRC program. Serve as BRC practitioner for the facility.
• Understand, drive, and deliver FSQA related KPI results in areas such as environmental
• performance, sanitation effectiveness, and customer complaints.
• Effectively empower a staff of food industry professionals to obtain company and facility objectives.
• Ensure existing programs and procedures are verified and validated and represent optimal allocation of company resources.
• Manage multiple complex projects simultaneously related to the needs of the business.
• Serve, along with facility manager, as a primary representative for visitors, auditors, customers, and community.
• Innovate and inspire a culture of creativity to continuously improve facility systems and
• programs.
• Serve as liaison with local government agency representatives through the normal course of business and in the resolution of regulatory complaints.
• Coordinate competing priorities and challenging deadlines; leverage cross-functional resources to achieve results.
• Develop and maintain facility procedures critical to quality and food safety.
• Champion the needs of the facility and the site FSQA organization by seeking mission-critical resources with data-based justifications.
• Serve as on-call leader for areas of responsibility during off-hours.

Customer Service

• Maintain relationships with internal and external customers through compliance with
• contractual agreements, information exchange, and project collaboration.
• Communicate directly with customers in written and oral capacities, serving as an instrument of the company in ongoing relationship management.
• Facilitate third party and customer audits.
• Handle complaints through root cause analysis, corrective actions, and preventive measures.
• Track, trend, and communicate to stakeholders.
• Communicate effectively and frequently with leadership in other functional areas of the facility.
• Prioritize departmental functions to enable successful operations.
• Support business projects by evaluating risks and serving as a subject matter resource.

Team Building

• Mentor and motivate team members. Build and execute development plans for team members at subordinate levels of the organization to prepare them for roles of increased responsibility.
• Maintain an approved succession plan for yourself and your salaried reports.
• Meet personnel objectives by planning, monitoring, appraising, and reviewing job contributions; providing awareness education, enforcing policies and procedures.
• Use responsible delegation methods to balance workloads in the department and to ensure all team members are engaged according to their positions and talents.
• Evolve the site quality organizational structure to suit the needs of the business.
• Define job responsibilities within the department and institutionalize FSQA-related
• responsibilities outside the FSQA department through SOPs, standard work instructions, and by coordinating with other functional leaders.
• Actively manage the acquisition and organization of talent in the FSQA department.
• Facilitate a learning culture by training and mentoring staff from other functional areas in USDA, SQF, and HACCP programs and responsibilities.
• Coordinate industry GFSI and HACCP certifications for facility leadership.
• Collaborate with Operations leaders and teams to implement initiatives
• Foods to deliver all food safety and quality expectations.

Continuous Improvement

• Use tools and techniques of statistical process control to reduce defects.
• Actively participate in cross-functional projects related to quality and compliance of new and existing products.
• Assist in scoping plant projects. Understand the impact that proposed changes have on
• processes and inform stakeholders.
• Work cross-functionally with Operations, Maintenance, Scheduling, and Logistics to ensure initiatives are supported by the equipment, materials and processes necessary to drive sustainable results.
• Utilize Lean Manufacturing tools to map and improve processes.
• Drive a positive food safety and quality culture at the company by championing behavior, education, and training.

Technical Expertise and Ideation

• Maintain current technical expertise in Global Food Safety Initiatives and customer-driven compliance schemes.
• Understand the product channels and markets relevant to the business.
• Recommend and champion new technologies and best practices which will support key
• objectives.
• Understand how regulated product characteristics interact with specifications, labels, and policies. Safeguard facility and product compliance.
• Serve as an expert resource in focused-improvement projects.
• Function as tactical and strategic technical advisor to facility manager.

Department and Company Strategies, Objectives and Systems

• Develop clear, measurable objectives to support company and plant goals and benchmark their attainment.
• Set and communicate food safety and quality strategies at the facility and drive their continuous refinement and progression.
• Ensure that company policies are fully implemented and supported by plant procedures.
• Accept additional responsibilities as needed in the support of company goals.

Required Knowledge/Skills/Abilities:

• Technical knowledge and good reasoning abilities.
• Demonstrated sound situational judgment and the ability to manage risk.
• Mature, enthusiastic, leader with a history of successful team building.
• Superlative written and oral communications skills.
• Excellent computer skills – advanced user of databases, spreadsheets, and propriety suites.
• Good organization skills with the ability to plan projects/activities with a high energy level.
• Creative problem solving skills and an orientation towards innovation.
• Ability to establish credibility with others, as well as be decisive.
• Ability to recognize and support the organizations preferences and priorities.

Education and Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical discipline required. Graduate degree preferred.
• HACCP, GFSI certifications required, auditing accreditation preferred.
• USDA meat processing experience preferred.
• Relevant continuous improvement certifications preferred.
• Ten years of progressive leadership in food safety and food quality.
• Equivalent combinations of experience and training that provide the required knowledge, skills, and abilities.