Plant Director

A Brief Overview
The Manufacturing Plant Director is responsible for leading all aspects of plant operations to ensure safe, efficient, and profitable production. This role oversees manufacturing, quality, maintenance, engineering, safety, continuous improvement, and workforce management. The Plant Director develops and executes operational strategies that drive performance, optimize resources, improve customer satisfaction, and achieve business objectives while fostering a culture of safety, accountability, and operational excellence.

Responsibilities

• Operational Leadership: Direct and oversee all manufacturing and warehouse operations (where applicable) to achieve production, quality, delivery, and cost targets. Develop and execute plant strategies aligned with organizational goals. Ensure efficient utilization of labor, equipment, materials, and resources. Manage and deliver the results of balanced scorecard across: Safety, Quality, Production Output, Cost, Delivery, and Morale and implement corrective actions as needed to improve metric performance.
• Safety, Health, Environmental Compliance: Champion a culture of workplace safety and environmental responsibility. Ensures plant is in compliance with all KORE Environmental/Safety, ISO-14001 and 45001, requirements and all Federal/ State laws and regulations.
• Quality Management: Ensure products meet customer specifications and quality requirements. Implement root cause analysis and corrective/preventive action plans. Ensures plant is in compliance with all KORE Quality ISO-9001, and FSSC-22000 requirements and all Federal/ State laws and regulations
• Facility, Machinery, Equipment and Capital Expenditure (Capex) management: Ensure that all buildings, manufacturing machinery and equipment are in good and reliable operating condition. Proposes and manage the future capital expenditures for the plant facilities and equipment.
• Financial Performance: Own plant P&L performance and operating budgets. Drive cost reduction initiatives while maintaining quality and service standards. Monitor labor, material, inventory, and overhead expenses. Develop business cases for capital investments and operational improvements. Ensures plant delivers a balanced scorecard across: Safety, Quality, Production Output, Cost, Delivery, and Morale.
• People Leadership: Build, develop, and lead a high-performing leadership team. Establish performance expectations and accountability across the plant. Support workforce planning, succession planning, talent development, and employee engagement. Foster a culture of inclusion, collaboration, and continuous learning.
• Continuous Improvement: Lead Operational Excellence initiative; Integrated Work Systems (IWS) that focuses on people centric management framework with 100% employee engagement and zero loss mindset. Identify losses to improve productivity, quality, throughput, and waste reduction. Drive adoption of best practices and standardized processes.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Ensure good coordination and communication across all functional areas through a structured IBP process. Support new product introductions, equipment upgrades, and facility expansions.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree Manufacturing, Operations Management, Business Administration, or related field required
• Master's Degree MBA or Operations related discipline preferred
• 10-12 years 10+ years of progressive manufacturing leadership experience required
• 2-4 years 3+ years leading a manufacturing plant, business unit, or large operations organization required
• Experience managing multi-functional teams in a manufacturing and warehouse (where applicable) environment required
• Strong financial acumen, including budgeting, forecasting, and P&L management required
• Knowledge of Lean Manufacturing and continuous improvement methodologies required
• Willingness to travel as needed, where needed required
• Willingness to respond to issues when needed and at odd days and hours required
• Integrated Work Systems (IWS) knowledge.
• Experience in food manufacturing.
• Demonstrated success leading organizational change and operational transformations.