Director Of Plant Operations

Director of Dairy Operations

We are looking for a Director of Dairy Operations who is highly motivated to help build a fast-growing dairy/beverage manufacturing facility. The ideal candidate will have a dairy or beverage manufacturing background and the desire to scale up the operation over the next several years. The Director of Dairy Operations will be responsible for leading Production Planner, Production Supervisors, Production Leads, and indirect associates to meet departmental and overall company budgets and goals. Responsible for developing manufacturing strategies to reduce downtime and shrink and improve product flow, utilizing lean value stream mapping to identify needed kaizen activities. The Director of Dairy Operations will report directly to the General Manager.

Location: Northern New Jersey near Pennsylvania

Job Responsibilities:

• Maintains a safe and healthy work environment by following standards and procedures; complying with legal codes and regulations.
• Works to understand, document, develop, and improve best practices that supports consistent manufacturing performance.
• Responsible for working with the finance department to establish and maintain annual department budgets to maximize plant profitability. Maintains adequate plant staffing and controls labor and other overhead costs.
• Works with Maintenance to troubleshoot equipment failure and repeat downtime events, while identifying solutions that reduce downtime in a cost-effective manner.
• Directly and indirectly supervise a staff of managers and hourly employees in various operational areas. Develop a strategy that maintains staff by recruiting, selecting, orienting, and training employees; developing employee growth opportunities.
• Supports SQF program by maintaining food safety and food quality through job tasks in relation to GMPs, HACCP, sanitation, etc.
• Engages new business opportunities with a positive can-do leadership approach, and shares this positive outlook with their peers and team.
• Responsible for ensuring customer orders/requirements are met with effective production schedules. Works with the Production Planner to develop manufacturing schedules to meet planning commitments, and ensures resources are available and prepared to meet these commitments.
• Creates and sustains a strong safety culture with a high level of accountability. Ensure assigned departments comply with all environmental, health and safety policies and procedures. Identifies and eliminates hazards.
• Develop and track operational, compliance and other performance KPI’s, while creating and implementing continuous improvement projects and best practices for their areas with minimal oversight.

Required Skills/Qualifications:

• 5+ years of experience in a manufacturing environment, with a minimum of 3 years in a supervisory role
• Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering or other technical discipline or equivalent work experience.
• Familiarity with lean tools, six sigma, kaizen, and other continuous improvement methods
• Experience in a Continuous Improvement / Manufacturing Excellence / Operational Excellence role with demonstrated ability to drive efficiency improvement and cost-down projects to deliver significant results.
• Strong leadership skills with a track record of developing a team and driving a culture of accountability
• Proficient in creating and monitoring an annual budget, while developing cost-reduction initiatives
• Dairy or high-speed beverage manufacturing required
• High level of proficiency of Excel, PowerPoint, Word, ERP/MRP systems
• Exceptional communication skills and ability to interact confidently and professionally with various levels of management as well as, Auditors, State, Federal, and other regulatory agencies.
• Strong experience with developing KPIs and using them to drive business performance improvement.