Director of Operations

Precision Castparts - Houston, TX

Full-time - Senior

Houston, TX

10,001+ employees

Primary Metal Manufacturing

About the position

The Director of Operations/Plant Manager at Wyman Gordon Houston plays a pivotal role in steering the operational success of the facility, reporting directly to the WG Houston VP. This position is critical in the heavy manufacturing sector, particularly within the aerospace industry, and encompasses a range of leadership responsibilities aimed at driving financial performance, implementing lean methodologies, ensuring safety initiatives, and fostering continuous improvement across all operational facets. The role requires a strategic mindset to employ right-to-left thinking and drive financial outcomes, ensuring daily tracking and adherence to budget while adjusting short-term plans to accommodate revenue dynamics. In addition to financial oversight, the Director will be responsible for specific profit improvement initiatives, including raw, WIP, and finished inventory reduction, changeover time reduction, and scrap/rework elimination. The position also emphasizes the importance of lean manufacturing initiatives and continuous improvement, ensuring a plant-wide commitment to the successful launch of new product lines. The Director will lead the implementation of a schedule-based production manning model to proactively predict and support direct labor requirements, driving consistent use of structured problem-solving methods and robust data gathering and analysis tools to support measurable results. Long-term objectives include leading plant-wide development to better understand and effectively employ industry-standard concepts, maintaining a customer-focused continuous improvement paradigm, and championing systematic continuous improvement of process capabilities and costs. The Director will also focus on employee development, ensuring a culture of excellence and growth within the manufacturing environment.

Responsibilities

• Employ right to left thinking and drive the financials.
• Ensure daily tracking and adherence to budget, adjusting short term plans to accommodate revenue dynamics.
• Ensure specific profit improvement initiatives, including raw, WIP and finished inventory reduction, changeover time reduction and scrap/rework elimination.
• Ensure lean manufacturing initiatives, continuous improvement, and corrective action activities.
• Ensure plantwide commitment to successful launches of new product lines.
• Lead implementation of schedule-based production manning model to proactively predict, address and support direct labor requirements.
• Drive consistent use of structured problem-solving methods.
• Drive robust data gathering, analysis and distribution tools to support all result measurables.
• Drive visual factory and '6S' tools and expectations, in keeping with road map timing.
• Develop and consistently apply company rules and policies.
• Drive successful functioning safety program and accident reduction.
• Set and facilitate plantwide communication expectations, including daily, weekly, and monthly interactions.
• Lead plant-wide development to better understand and effectively employ industry-standard concepts.
• Maintain a plant-wide customer-focused, continuous improvement paradigm.
• Champion long-term, systematic continuous improvement of process capabilities and costs, while supporting zero defects, on-time delivery and cost competitiveness.
• Champion employee development.

Requirements

• Degree in engineering or technical field required.
• 10 or more years in successive leadership roles in a heavy manufacturing environment(s), with specific experience leading Aerospace industry plants.
• Experience in accident reduction/elimination & 6s methodology and execution.
• Demonstrated knowledge of structured problem solving and related tools, ISO expectations, basic statistical methods, and other industry-standard skills including kanban, TOC, SMED, error-proofing, etc.
• Comfort working top to bottom of organization, plant floor to boardroom.
• Demonstrated cultural change agent.
• Sound cross-functional knowledge and ability to operate with all functions/departments.
• P&L responsibility in at least one prior position.
• Demonstrated capability in lean manufacturing techniques, JIT concepts and proven, measurable productivity improvements.
• Strong interpersonal and organizational skills.

Nice-to-haves

• Experience in union environments with strong negotiations and relations focus.
• Passionate towards excellence and growth of the business and individuals within the manufacturing industry.
• Strong self-awareness, including accurate self-assessment and high self-confidence.
• Self-regulating with integrity, composure, flexibility, and innovation.
• Lead with Action-based and hands-on exposure to the workforce.