Operations Manager
Job Description
Reports to: Chief Executive Officer
Department: Operations
FLSA Status: Exempt
Salary: $125,000 per year
Benefits: Health, Dental, Vision, Paid Time Off, 401(k)
Summary of Responsibilities
The Operations Manager provides leadership for daily production and warehouse operations at FM Labs' 24/7 hemp ingredient manufacturing facility. This position is responsible for ensuring safe, compliant, and efficient manufacturing operations through effective leadership, production planning, inventory management, employee development, continuous improvement, and cross-functional collaboration.
Initially, the position has direct responsibility for Production and Warehouse operations. As proficiency is demonstrated and organizational needs evolve, responsibilities may expand to include Maintenance, indirect procurement, and administrative leadership of Quality while maintaining Quality's independent authority over product hold and release decisions.
Essential Functions
The essential functions listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required to successfully perform this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable qualified individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of this position.
Production Operations:
- Lead daily production activities across a continuous manufacturing operation.
- Develop and execute production schedules based on customer demand, labor, materials, equipment capacity, and maintenance requirements.
- Ensure production targets are achieved safely, efficiently, and in accordance with quality standards.
- Maintain an active presence on the plant floor while directing supervisors, leads, and operators.
- Monitor production performance, yields, downtime, labor utilization, and schedule attainment.
- Coordinate shift handoffs and support startup, shutdown, changeover, cleaning, and process-control discipline.
Warehouse & Inventory Management:
- Lead warehouse, receiving, staging, shipping, and finished goods activities.
- Maintain inventory accuracy with Finance and Supply Chain.
- Lead physical inventories and resolve discrepancies.
- Establish practical inventory controls for consumables and indirect materials.
- Oversee purchasing of production consumables and warehouse supplies.
Safety & Environmental Compliance:
- Ensure Production and Warehouse teams comply with safety requirements, PPE, chemical handling, and safe work practices.
- Partner with the EHS Manager on safety programs, investigations, and corrective actions.
- Promote stop-work authority and compliance with environmental procedures.
cGMP & Quality Execution:
- Ensure compliance with SOPs, batch records, sanitation requirements, and documentation.
- Partner with Quality on CAPAs, deviations, audits, training, and documentation improvements.
- Support customer, certification, and regulatory audits.
Leadership & Team Development:
- Lead, coach, and develop supervisors, leads, operators, and warehouse personnel.
- Establish performance expectations and accountability.
- Partner with Human Resources on recruiting, onboarding, employee relations, scheduling, and performance management.
- Strengthen communication across departments.
Continuous Improvement:
- Develop operating metrics and scorecards.
- Lead initiatives focused on throughput, yield, labor efficiency, inventory accuracy, changeovers, and documentation.
- Promote 5S and structured problem solving.
- Partner with Engineering, Maintenance, Quality, and R&D on process improvements and capital projects.
Cross-Functional Collaboration:
- Work closely with EHS, Quality, Engineering, Maintenance, R&D, Supply Chain, Finance, and Human Resources to ensure safe, efficient, compliant operations.
Key Responsibilities and Timeframe Expectations
The initial focus of this role is leadership of Production and Warehouse operations. As business needs evolve and demonstrated performance warrants, responsibilities may expand to include:
- Maintenance leadership, preventive and predictive maintenance, work-order prioritization, planning, MRO inventory, contractor coordination, and equipment reliability.
- Administrative leadership of Quality while maintaining Quality's independent authority over product hold and release decisions.
- Indirect procurement, vendor management, consumables, parts, and equipment purchasing.
Key Success Measures:
- Safe and compliant plant operations
- Production schedule attainment
- Labor efficiency and staffing discipline
- Inventory accuracy
- Yield and throughput performance
- Equipment uptime
- cGMP and documentation compliance
- Audit performance and corrective action closure
- Employee accountability and development
- Reduced operational dependence on the executive team
- Successful expansion into broader plant responsibilities, as appropriate
Job Requirements
Required:
- Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Operations Management, Food Science, Chemistry, Business, or related discipline, or equivalent manufacturing experience.
- Six or more years of progressively responsible manufacturing experience.
- Three or more years of leadership experience in a production or plant environment.
- Experience in multi-shift or continuous manufacturing.
- Working knowledge of cGMP, OSHA, inventory control, scheduling, and continuous improvement.
- Strong communication, organization, judgment, and follow-through.
- Ability to work onsite with a regular presence on the plant floor.
Preferred:
- Experience in pharmaceutical, CDMO, food & beverage, dietary supplement, specialty chemical, ag-tech, botanical extraction, or other regulated manufacturing.
- Experience with liquid processing, distillation, filtration, sanitary piping, or solvent-based manufacturing.
- Experience with ERP/MRP, CMMS, Lean Manufacturing, 5S, and root cause analysis.
- Previous responsibility for warehouse, maintenance, inventory, sanitation, or quality functions.
FM Labs is a PRIMARY SOURCE FOR cGMP COMPLIANT HEMP-DERIVED CANNABINOIDS.
Established in 2019, FM labs was created from a vision to redefine excellence in the hemp industry. We take immense pride in crafting premium hemp derived ingredients, standing as a testament to our commitment.
We recognize the importance of consistent product quality and reliable service offerings. As industrial- scale processors, we work in alignment with our customers to ensure they have a reliable and timely source of desired ingredients when they count on it the most.
Commitment to Excellence:
At FM Labs, we go beyond just meeting industry standards by embedding safety, compliance, and consistency at the heart of what we do. We benchmark ourselves against world-class operations and have therefore contributed to the advancement of the Hemp industry as a whole by being an example for others in both product safety and quality standards.
