Vice President Operations

The Vice President of Manufacturing Operations leads and optimizes all manufacturing activities to deliver world-class performance in safety, quality, cost, and productivity. This role drives continuous improvement, operational efficiency, and capacity expansion while fostering a high-performance culture across manufacturing operations.

This individual plays a critical leadership role in advancing manufacturing capabilities to support business growth and innovation. This position oversees end-to-end manufacturing operations, champions continuous improvement initiatives, and partners cross-functionally to drive operational excellence, scalability, and customer satisfaction.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

Operational Leadership:

• Provide strategic and day-to-day leadership for all manufacturing, production, maintenance, quality, and supply chain operations.
• Drive operational excellence through Lean manufacturing (where applicable), continuous improvement, and disciplined execution.
• Establish and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) related to safety, quality, productivity, delivery, and cost.

Plant Floor Presence:

• Maintain a highly visible presence on the plant floor, spending a significant amount of time directly observing operations and engaging with employees.
• Identify opportunities for process improvement through firsthand observation and collaboration with production teams.
• Foster a culture of accessibility, responsiveness, and servant leadership.
• Set department productivity goals and manage them through the team of production managers and team leaders.
• Develop a high level of product knowledge and quality standards to be able to visibly inspect a finished product and know if it is up to the company’s standards.

Leadership Development:

• Coach, mentor, and develop production managers, supervisors, and emerging leaders.
• Create structured development plans to strengthen leadership capabilities across operations.
• Build succession plans for key operational roles.
• Instill strong management disciplines, including accountability, communication, and decision-making.
• Effectively communicate with production managers/employees that are not performing as desired and implement an improvement plan or solution to get them back on track

Strategic Growth:

• Collaborate with executive leadership to support expansion, capital investment, and scalability.
• Evaluate operational readiness for growth opportunities, new product introductions, and facility expansion.
• Lead operational integration of acquisitions, when applicable.

Other Duties and Responsibilities:

• Know what the capacities of each department are and decide when overtime is necessary for different departments based on the production schedule
• Maintain safe and clean work environment
• Maintain compliance with established policies and procedures by educating and directing employees on the use of equipment and resources
• Effectively communicate with other employees and departments about work related processes
• Conduct job interviews for applicants seeking employment in various areas such as welding, grinding, blasting, forming, machine operating, and assembly
• Be able to make defendable decisions on new candidates as to why they are fit or unfit for the position they are interviewing for.
• Manage inventory of the assigned areas in Global Shop (ERP System) and work with receiving to ensure parts are being put where they need to go and with correct quantities assigned
• Update information in Global Shop as necessary
• Perform additional related duties as required

JOB REQUIREMENTS/SKILLS

• Manage processes and process improvements
• Plan production including prioritizing jobs and manpower to complete jobs on schedule
• Ability to identify areas of process improvement
• Ability to communicate job expectations, monitor, and appraise results
• Ability to effectively coach and counsel employees on performance and behavioral issues
• Hands-on, floor-focused leadership style
• Exceptional coaching and mentoring ability
• Strong operational and financial acumen
• Strategic thinker with tactical execution skills
• High emotional intelligence and communication skills
• Results-driven with a passion for continuous improvement
• Ability to lead through change and scale organizations

EDUCATION/EXPERIENCE:

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, Operations Management, Business, or related field; MBA preferred.
• Proven success leading complex manufacturing operations in a senior executive role.
• Previous production management or supervisory experience (5 years)
• Experience with prioritizing workload and staff assignments
• Experience working in a manufacturing environment with a level of familiarity involving metal working
• Demonstrated ability to develop production managers and build high-performing leadership teams.