Plant Manager

Chicago / Chicagoland | Food Manufacturing | Operations Leadership

We seek an experienced Plant Manager with food manufacturing experience, leading a complex, multi-shift manufacturing facilities. We seek a candidate that will managed 200+ employees across FDA/USDA-regulated production lines with strong leadership and people-development skills with a track record of building, coaching, and developing supervisors and managers for increased responsibility.

Duties:

• Proven experience leading a large-scale manufacturing operation, including responsibility for production performance, safety, quality, and workforce leadership.
• Demonstrated commitment to employee safety, health, and environmental compliance, with strong knowledge of applicable OSHA requirements.
• Experience establishing and managing plant KPIs, including yield/giveaway, labor efficiency, production loss, waste, cost, and overall operational performance.
• Strong knowledge of USDA/FSIS-regulated food manufacturing, including experience working directly with USDA inspectors.
• Demonstrated experience with operating budgets, capital planning, capacity planning, and cost control.
• Proven success implementing continuous improvement initiatives that improve productivity, efficiency, quality, yield, and profitability.
• Ability to establish and maintain strong food safety and quality standards while ensuring compliance with USDA, FSIS, OSHA, EPA, and other applicable regulations.
• Experience coordinating cross-functional departments, including production, purchasing, maintenance, sanitation, quality, and shipping.
• Strong leadership and people-development skills with a track record of building, coaching, and developing supervisors and managers for increased responsibility.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities and make sound operational decisions in a fast-paced manufacturing environment.
• Hands-on leadership style with the ability to lead by example, drive accountability, and engage employees in problem-solving and decision-making.
• Ability to serve as the facility's primary liaison with USDA inspectors and effectively address regulatory and compliance matters.

Qualifications:

• 7+ year's experience working in a manufacturing production environment
• Ability to led 200+ employees across multiple shifts
• Ability to managed two facilities
• Extensive FDA/USDA-regulated food manufacturing experience
• Extensive experience with labor optimization, waste reduction and continuous improvement
• Led automation initiatives involving production equipment and collaborative robots
• Strong cross-functional leadership across Production, Quality, Maintenance, Supply Chain, Warehouse and Sanitation
• Proven ability to hire, mentor and develop high-performing manufacturing leadership teams
• Bilingual English/Spanish

Areas of Expertise

Plant Operations • Food Manufacturing • USDA/FDA Environments • Continuous Improvement • Lean Manufacturing • Cost Reduction • Labor Optimization • Food Safety & Quality • Production Efficiency • Waste Reduction • Automation • Operational Transformation • Budget Management • KPI Development • Customer Relations • Team Development

Ideal Opportunity

This candidate would be an excellent fit for a Plant Manager, Senior Plant Manager, Director of Manufacturing, or Director of Operations opportunity within a high-volume food or consumer packaged goods manufacturing organization.

Labor Solutions, LLC is a leader in the professional, temporary, and direct hire industry throughout the Midwest area. Our clients range from individual entrepreneurs to large corporations, and while we are big enough to serve Fortune 100 companies, we are small enough to stay nimble in an always-changing market.

Thank you!