Operations and Production Manager

**POSITION SUMMARY** The **Operations and Production Manager** leads daily processing, material handling, warehousing, shipping/receiving, quality, safety, equipment, and employee activities in a polymer tolling and contract processing facility. Coordinate people, equipment, and materials to meet customer requirements and company procedures. Use the Warehouse Management System (WMS), Processing Management System, and operational tools to manage processing, inventory, traceability, and shipment information. Support ISO 9001:2015 and GMP compliance and a Right-First-Time, Zero-Defect, continuous-improvement culture. **ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS AND RESPONSIBILITIES:** **Employee Leadership and Performance Management** * Manage employees within the designated span of control, and establish expectations for productivity, quality, attendance, safety, and ISO/GMP compliance. * Manager / Develop Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to ensure peak performance. * Support onboarding, job-specific/refresher training, cross-training, progressive discipline, and development. **Safety Leadership** * Promote safety; conduct documented inspections, audits, meetings, toolbox talks, and training. Enforce OSHA, company, and site requirements, including PPE, lockout/tagout, machine guarding, powered industrial trucks, hazardous materials, housekeeping, and safe handling. * Ensure employees are trained and qualified before assigned work. Identify hazards, promptly correct unsafe conditions and behaviors, and support accident, injury, and near-miss investigations. * Maintain knowledge of the Emergency Response Plan; communicate evacuation routes, alarms, contacts, and reporting requirements and participate in drills. Respond to fires, spills, equipment/utility failures, injuries, and environmental incidents; coordinate responders, protect people and property, and complete incident reports, reviews, and corrective actions. **Operations Management** * Coordinate processing, warehousing, material handling, and shipping/receiving activities; set assignments and priorities based on schedules, customer specifications, staffing, equipment, and material availability. * Monitor schedule, quality, safety, and productivity targets; resolve bottlenecks, delays, downtime, and resource constraints. Maintain clear shift handoffs and clean, organized ISO/GMP production areas. **Processing Management & Control** * Optimize processing equipment for safe, effective use; lead downtime reduction, material preservation, and efficient processing projects. * Follow approved specifications, SOPs, work instructions, and batch/process documentation. Complete pre-process checks of materials, lot numbers, quantities, status, packaging, labels, equipment, and documentation. * Verify equipment preparation, inspection, and documented clean-out/line-cleaning. Prevent use of quarantined, rejected, expired, or restricted materials; permit rework, recycling, or reuse only as authorized by procedures and customer requirements. * Monitor processing; promptly communicate and document deviations, equipment problems, material discrepancies, and quality concerns. Support investigations of nonconforming products and customer complaints. **ISO 9001:2015 and GMP Compliance** * Support ISO 9001:2015, GMP, customer-specific, and internal quality compliance through controlled procedures, work instructions, internal audits, forms, and production and inspection documentation. * Prevent unauthorized process, equipment, material, or procedure changes; support Management of Change (MOC) and escalate significant quality, ISO, GMP, safety, or compliance issues. **Warehouse Management, Material Control, Shipping / Receiving** * Use WMS to maintain accurate inventory, locations, transactions, and receipt-to-shipment traceability; apply FIFO when required and investigate inventory discrepancies. * Ensure management of materials, products, packaging, supplies, and equipment are done in accordance with best practices, customer requirements, ISO/GMP requirements, and company policies. * Coordinate timely, accurate material and product movement for processing, warehouse, customer service, transportation, and customers; verify shipment priorities, product identification, and documentation standards are met. **Continuous Improvement** * Use operational data, employee input, and continuous improvement methodologies to improve productivity, quality, safety, cost, and service. Standardize work and error prevention to reduce waste, downtime, rework, material loss, and variation; verify improvement effectiveness. **MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS** * Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Operations / Industrial Management, or a related field. * At least five (5) years of relevant experience in a comparable role. * Understanding of various enterprise management systems (WMS, MES, ERP, SCADA, etc.) * Working knowledge of ISO 9001:2015, GMP, OSHA, and industrial safety requirements. * Strong communication, organization, problem-solving, and operational data analysis skills. **PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS** * Experience leading continuous improvement initiatives using standard techniques and processes. * Experience in polymer processing, plastics manufacturing, extrusion, compounding, blending, or toll manufacturing; customer-owned materials/products; and customer-specific quality/GMP requirements. * Experience selecting and optimizing industrial equipment used in processing, production, manufacturing, and/or material handling. * Strong working knowledge of process equipment in the polymer tolling environment.