Vice President of Operations – Multi-Site - Make-to-Order Manufacturing

Position Summary: The Vice President of Operations will own manufacturing performance across both sites, with accountability for safety, quality, delivery, productivity, and operating cost. The role combines daily execution with longer-term improvements in production planning, leadership capability, manufacturing processes, and capacity. This role will work closely with Engineering, Quality, Supply Chain, Sales, and other business leaders to align customer commitments with operational capability. A central responsibility will be strengthening the connection between order requirements and shop-floor execution, ensuring that production has the information, materials, equipment, and skills needed to perform reliably.

Multi-Site Leadership and Operating Discipline: Establish a practical approach to Lean across both facilities through Lean daily management, visible performance measures, structured problem solving, and clear escalation and follow-through. Develop and implement leader standard work for site leaders and frontline supervisors, including regular shop-floor observation, daily performance reviews, coaching, and verification that corrective actions are effective. Apply these disciplines to improve safety, quality, delivery, flow, throughput, and cost in a high-mix, make-to-order environment. Build the organization’s Lean capability through hands-on training, coaching, and application to actual operating problems. Develop leaders and teams who can identify constraints, address root causes, implement improvements, and sustain effective work practices without constant executive intervention. Establish common operating expectations across both sites while preserving the flexibility required by changing product mix and customer-specific work.

Production Planning, Capacity, and Flow: Improve production scheduling and capacity planning in a high-mix, make-to-order environment. Ensure schedules reflect actual constraints, including engineering release status, material readiness, equipment availability, and skilled-labor capacity. Manage work-in-process and order sequencing to reduce congestion, unnecessary handling, and avoidable interruptions. Coordinate workload across both sites where capabilities and customer requirements support it.

Throughput, Delivery, and Productivity: Identify and address bottlenecks through fabrication, welding, finishing, and assembly. Improve schedule adherence, lead times, and on-time delivery through better preparation, balanced workloads, practical standard work, and focused problem solving. Apply Lean methods appropriate to variable order quantities and product configurations, with measurable improvements in flow and labor productivity.

Safety, Quality, and Process Control: Set clear expectations for safe work practices and consistent execution across both facilities. Partner with Quality and Engineering to strengthen in-process controls, documentation discipline, and corrective-action effectiveness in a certification-driven manufacturing environment. Reduce scrap and rework by addressing recurring process issues and ensuring that production teams work from current, accurate instructions and specifications.

Cost, Margin, and Working Capital: Manage operating performance with a clear understanding of labor efficiency, overtime, material utilization, scrap, rework, inventory, and operating expenses. Improve visibility into actual job performance relative to planned labor and material requirements. Use that information to address execution losses and support better estimating, routing, and costing decisions. Connect operational improvements to measurable financial results.

Engineering-to-Manufacturing Coordination: Partner closely with Engineering to ensure orders enter production with build-ready drawings, accurate bills of material, practical routings, and clear revision status. Establish expectations for resolving incomplete information before work reaches the floor. Coordinate engineering changes so their effects on materials, schedules, labor, and customer commitments are understood and managed. Provide production feedback that improves manufacturability and repeatability.

Materials Readiness and Commercial Alignment: Work with Supply Chain and Sales to align order commitments, purchased-material availability, and manufacturing capacity. Strengthen the handoffs between quoting, order acceptance, engineering, planning, and production. Establish a practical approach to priority changes and expedited orders so teams understand the tradeoffs and can protect existing customer commitments.

People and Leadership Development: Coach site leaders and frontline supervisors in planning, performance management, problem solving, and employee development. Clarify responsibilities and strengthen accountability without making every decision dependent on the VP of Operations. Build skills coverage and cross-training in critical processes, address performance gaps, and develop the leadership bench needed to support a growing two-site business.

Equipment Reliability, Capital, and Technology: Partner with Engineering and Maintenance to improve equipment availability and preventive-maintenance discipline. Prioritize equipment, layout, process, and technology investments based on their expected contribution to safety, quality, throughput, delivery, and cost. Strengthen the use of ERP/MRP and shop-floor information where it improves planning and execution. Carry investments through implementation, training, and verification of results. Required Experience | Technical Critical to Quality and Success Requirements: Progressive manufacturing leadership: Typically 15+ years of manufacturing experience with increasing responsibility for production, people, operating performance, and cost. Direct make-to-order experience: Demonstrated success in high-mix, low-volume, configured-to-order, or engineered-to-order manufacturing with meaningful variation in customer requirements. Fabrication operating background: Hands-on leadership experience in fabrication-intensive environments involving welding, paint or finishing, and assembly. Experience with comparable engineered industrial products is particularly relevant. Multi-site or complex-site leadership: Proven leadership across multiple manufacturing locations, or substantial responsibility for a complex single facility with multiple production areas and a developed management team. Demonstrated operating improvement: A record of improving safety, quality, throughput, delivery, productivity, and cost, with evidence that results were sustained. Practical Lean application: Demonstrated experience implementing Lean daily management and leader standard work in a high-mix, make-to-order manufacturing environment. Proven ability to improve flow, throughput, and operating performance while developing the problem-solving and coaching capabilities of plant leaders, frontline supervisors, and production teams. Experience must extend beyond leading isolated improvement events to establishing operating practices that teams consistently use and sustain. Planning and manufacturing systems: Strong understanding of capacity planning, production scheduling, work-in-process management, material readiness, and ERP/MRP-supported execution. Engineering and quality coordination: Experience working with drawings, bills of material, routings, labor standards, revision control, and manufacturing documentation in an engineered-product environment. Financial and investment discipline: Ability to connect operating decisions to labor and material costs, inventory, margin, and the expected returns from capital or technology investments. Leadership development: Evidence of strengthening plant management and frontline supervision, building workforce capability, and establishing accountability beyond personal involvement.

Education: A bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Manufacturing, Operations Management, Business, or a related field is preferred. Relevant manufacturing leadership experience and demonstrated operating results will be important considerations. Leadership and Behavioral Profile: Reporting to the CEO, the right candidate is comfortable moving between the shop floor and executive-level decisions. This leader earns credibility by understanding the work, listening to operators and supervisors, and following through on commitments. Expectations are clear, performance discussions are grounded in facts, and problems are addressed directly. The role requires urgency without constant changes in direction. When delivery pressure increases, this role helps the organization understand the constraint, establish priorities, and execute a workable plan. They can make difficult people and operating decisions while developing the capability of others to take greater ownership. A strong fit will also understand the scale of the business. This is an opportunity for someone who can introduce useful structure in a small-team environment, work through imperfect information, and remain personally engaged in implementation. Location and On-Site Expectations: This position is based in the Memphis metropolitan area and requires regular, visible leadership at both manufacturing facilities. It is not a remote or primarily travel-based oversight role.

Compensation: Excellent Base and Bonus