Operations Manager
Ashland Conveyor Products · Ashland, OH
The manufacturing Operations Manager is responsible for the daily execution and performance of manufacturing operations. This role converts plant priorities and production plans into consistent shop-floor execution, providing hands-on leadership to supervisors and team leads to achieve safety, quality, delivery, labor, productivity, and cost objectives. The position maintains a strong floor presence and coordinates closely with the Plant Manager, Engineering, Quality, Materials, Production Control, and Human Resources.
Primary Responsibilities
- Direct and coordinate daily manufacturing activities across assigned production areas.
- Translate schedules and customer priorities into clear daily expectations for supervisors, team leads, and production employees.
- Monitor production progress and address issues affecting safety, quality, delivery, labor, productivity, material availability, or equipment.
- Coordinate labor and resources between production areas based on workload, priorities, and constraints.
- Lead and develop production supervisors and team leads, including the Smart Conveyance Supervisor.
- Establish daily accountability through production meetings, floor communication, KPI review, and follow-up.
- Reinforce safe work practices and ensure corrective actions are completed.
- Work with Quality and Engineering on root-cause analysis, nonconformances, corrective/preventive actions, and process controls.
- Drive shop-floor continuous improvement, standardized work, workflow improvement, waste reduction, and problem solving.
- Monitor schedule attainment, labor productivity, overtime, throughput, WIP, quality, scrap, and rework.
- Work with Production Control and Materials to identify shortages and capacity risks before they affect customer commitments.
- Support prototypes, first builds, FATs, new-product launches, tooling, fixtures, and implementation of new equipment or processes.
- Escalate significant capacity, staffing, material, engineering, quality, or customer-delivery risks to the Plant Manager.
Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Business, Engineering, Manufacturing, Operations Management, or related field preferred.
- 7+ years of manufacturing, operations, quality, or production experience.
- Previous supervisory or management experience in a manufacturing environment.
- Demonstrated ability to lead employees and drive daily production execution.
- Working knowledge of lean manufacturing, root-cause analysis, corrective-action processes, and manufacturing quality systems.
- Ability to read and interpret engineering drawings and manufacturing specifications.
- Strong mechanical/technical aptitude and experience with production metrics, inventory, staffing, and cost controls.
- Strong communication, coaching, organizational, and cross-functional leadership skills.
- Strong computer skills including Microsoft Office, ERP systems and CRM software
- Previous experience in material handling or conveyance systems is a significant plus, though not strictly required
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to explain technical concepts clearly and effectively
- Commitment to our core values of Safety, Integrity, and Respect, with a collaborative and positive attitude