Project Manager II

About the Company

The Hellan Strainer Company / Hellan Fluid Systems

About the Role

Project Manager II / Engineered Products

Location: Cleveland, Ohio | Employment Type: Full-Time, On-Site

Reports To: Vice President of Engineering

Position Summary

The Hellan Strainer Company is seeking a Project Manager II to support the execution of large, complex customer projects across our organization. This position will be based full-time at our Cleveland facility and will work alongside our existing project management team. Hellan's larger projects typically involve purchase orders ranging from approximately $250,000 to $2 million and may include multiple products, manufacturing locations, delivery schedules, technical requirements, documentation requirements, and commercial terms. The Project Manager will serve as a key point of coordination between our customers, sales organization, engineering teams, manufacturing facilities, vendors, and internal departments to ensure projects are executed successfully from purchase order through shipment. Some travel to Hellan Fluid Systems' other manufacturing locations may be required to support project execution.

Responsibilities

• Manage assigned customer projects from purchase order acceptance through production, shipment, and project closeout.
• Review detailed customer purchase orders, specifications, schedules, commercial requirements, and terms and conditions.
• Participate in customer kickoff meetings, project reviews, scheduling discussions, and regular progress meetings.
• Develop and maintain project schedules, milestones, action items, documentation requirements, and delivery commitments.
• Coordinate project activity across multiple Hellan Fluid Systems manufacturing locations, including Hellan Strainer, SSI Fabricated, American Denco Manufacturing (ADM), and Denco.
• Work closely with production and operations teams to monitor manufacturing progress and identify potential schedule or capacity issues.
• Coordinate with engineering on drawings, technical submittals, customer approvals, design questions, and project-specific requirements.
• Work with outside vendors and suppliers to ensure purchased components and subcontracted work support overall project schedules.
• Serve as an internal liaison between project management, outside sales, inside sales, engineering, operations, quality, purchasing, and other departments.
• Communicate directly with customers regarding project status, schedules, documentation, technical questions, and other project requirements.
• Identify potential schedule, commercial, technical, or supply-chain risks and work with the appropriate teams to develop solutions before they impact the customer.
• Track changes in project scope and coordinate the commercial and scheduling impact of customer-requested changes.
• Maintain organized project documentation and provide regular status updates to customers and internal management.
• Support multiple active projects simultaneously while maintaining clear priorities and follow-up.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree preferred; engineering, business, manufacturing, construction management, project management, or a related field is beneficial.
• Engineering or technical background is helpful but not required.
• 3-5 years of experience in project management, program management, manufacturing, engineered products, industrial equipment, construction, EPC projects, or a related environment is required.
• Experience managing complex customer purchase orders or projects involving multiple departments and suppliers is required.
• PMP (Project Management Professional) or similar project management certification is a plus.
• Strong organizational and follow-up skills with the ability to manage multiple projects and priorities simultaneously.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills and the ability to interact professionally with customers, vendors, sales personnel, engineers, and manufacturing teams.
• Comfortable participating in customer meetings and discussing schedules, deliverables, production status, and commercial requirements.
• Ability to read and understand purchase orders, specifications, project schedules, and contractual requirements.
• Working knowledge of Microsoft Office applications. Experience with ERP, CRM, scheduling, or project-management systems is beneficial.

Required Skills

• Strong organizational and follow-up skills with the ability to manage multiple projects and priorities simultaneously.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to interact professionally with customers, vendors, sales personnel, engineers, and manufacturing teams.
• Comfortable participating in customer meetings and discussing schedules, deliverables, production status, and commercial requirements.
• Ability to read and understand purchase orders, specifications, project schedules, and contractual requirements.
• Working knowledge of Microsoft Office applications.

Preferred Skills

• Engineering or technical background.
• PMP (Project Management Professional) or similar project management certification.
• Experience with ERP, CRM, scheduling, or project-management systems.

Ideal Candidate

The successful candidate will be highly organized, proactive, and comfortable working in a fast-paced manufacturing environment. This individual does not need to be an engineer but should be comfortable working with technical products and communicating with engineering and manufacturing personnel. The ideal candidate understands that successful project management requires more than maintaining a schedule. This role requires actively driving projects forward, identifying potential problems early, communicating clearly with customers and internal teams, and making sure commitments made during the sales and order process are successfully carried through production and delivery. This is an on-site position at The Hellan Strainer Company's Cleveland facility and will work closely with our existing project management team as well as our broader sales, engineering, and operations organizations.

The Hellan Strainer’s unique, patented, self-cleaning design was named after a Norwegian inventor, Haakon Hellan.

In 1963, Cleveland Gear Company, Inc. purchased the design and incorporated its own worm gear speed reducers to create a motorized strainer model. The complete Hellan Strainer line manufactured by Cleveland Gear Company, Inc. became a part of the Vesper family in 1980.

In 2000, Hellan was made a subsidiary of Vesper Corporation as The Hellan Strainer Company.

Hellan expanded their product offerings of hose reels in 2003 and Staples & Pfeiffer strainers in 2009.

In 2018 Hellan Strainer acquired SSI Fabricated, expanding our product coverage to fabricated strainers and skid systems.

Today Hellan is one of many subsidiaries of Industrial Manufacturing Company (previously Vesper) that produce a wide variety of innovative products for industry

Hellan Strainers are ISO9001 certified, meet all Navy Mil-Spec requirements, are approved by the American Bureau of Shipping and Lloyd’s Register, listed by Underwriters Laboratories and designed in accordance with API, ASME and PED.