Job Description
Job Title: Operations Supervisor | Plant Manager Track
Location: Grand Rapids, MI
Hire Type: Direct Hire
Target Compensation: $80,000–100,000/year + up to 10% bonus
Benefits: Medical, dental, vision, PTO, paid holidays, retirement plan
Location: Grand Rapids, MI
Hire Type: Direct Hire
Target Compensation: $80,000–100,000/year + up to 10% bonus
Benefits: Medical, dental, vision, PTO, paid holidays, retirement plan
Must-Have Skills:
- 5+ years of supervisory experience in food manufacturing
- Experience leading cross-functional plant teams (Production, Quality, Maintenance, Sanitation)
- Strong knowledge of GMPs, food safety systems, and quality standards (HACCP/SQF/USDA/FDA as applicable)
- Experience managing teams of 40+ employees
- Strong leadership, accountability, and performance management skills
- Ability to operate in a fast-paced, high-volume production environment
Job Summary:
Seeking an Operations Supervisor for a small, high-impact food manufacturing facility producing tortilla products. This role functions as a Plant Manager track position, overseeing daily operations across Production, Quality, Maintenance, Sanitation, and Warehouse functions. The leader will be responsible for driving KPIs, enforcing accountability, ensuring food safety compliance, and supporting continuous improvement across the plant.
Job Duties:
- Supervise and coordinate daily operations across all plant functions
- Lead a team of approximately 40–55 employees across Production, Quality, Maintenance, and Sanitation
- Ensure production schedules are met while maintaining safety, quality, and efficiency standards
- Monitor and enforce GMPs, food safety, and regulatory compliance requirements
- Track and manage operational KPIs including labor, productivity, and throughput
- Partner with Maintenance to minimize downtime and ensure equipment reliability
- Collaborate with Quality to resolve issues and maintain product integrity
- Oversee sanitation readiness and audit compliance
- Lead employee training, coaching, performance management, and corrective action processes
- Drive continuous improvement initiatives focused on safety, cost, and operational performance
Qualifications:
- High school diploma or GED required; additional education preferred
- 5+ years of leadership experience in food or beverage manufacturing required
- Strong experience managing large hourly teams in a production environment
- Deep understanding of food safety systems and GMP compliance
- Bilingual English/Spanish strongly preferred
- Experience in high-volume, fast-paced manufacturing environments preferred
- Lean manufacturing or continuous improvement experience is a plus
- Strong tenure and stable employment history preferred
Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, age, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or genetic information.
Numbers & Facts
| Location | Grand Rapids, MI |
| Industry | Staffing/Employment Agencies |
| Salary | $80,000–$100,000 Per Year |
| Company Size | 500 to 999 employees |
| Year Founded | 1969 |
| Website | http://www.sterling-engineering.com |
About Company
Sterling Engineering has been a trusted partner for engineering, project management, and staffing solutions for over five decades. We provide exceptional engineering/technical recruitment and engineering project services to clients nationwide:
- Engineering & Technical Recruitment - With our focus on engineering, technical, and IT, Sterling has the in-depth knowledge, industry expertise, and robust employee pipeline it takes to rapidly find talent for even the most difficult to fill positions. Sterling’s extensive recruitment methodology allows us to engage the most talented employees in the marketplace. We offer exciting work and career-building opportunities for our candidates, along with expert support at every step of the process.
- Engineering Project Services – Our experienced, multi-disciplined team of project managers, engineers, and designers, led by licensed Professional Engineers (PE), provide project management, engineering, design, and Commissioning, Qualification, and Validation (CQV) to manufacturing, OEM, and R&D customers. We work on complex, highly technical projects across a number of industry sectors, and our ability to scale and seamlessly integrate at multiple levels of your organization is what differentiates us.
Sterling offers a unique combination of engineering solutions and Best of Staffing level service to help our clients and talent achieve their goals.
Skills
- Coachingunmatched
- Continuous Improvementunmatched
- Corrective Actionunmatched
- Cross-Functionalunmatched
- English Languageunmatched
- FDA (Food and Drug Administration)unmatched
- Food Productionunmatched
- Food Safetyunmatched
- Food and Beverage Industryunmatched
- GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices)unmatched
- High School Diplomaunmatched
- Leadershipunmatched
- Lean Manufacturingunmatched
- Maintain Complianceunmatched
- Manufacturingunmatched
- Multilingualunmatched
- Operationsunmatched
- Operations Managementunmatched
- People Managementunmatched
- Performance Managementunmatched
- Performance Metricsunmatched
- Problem Solving Skillsunmatched
- Process Improvementunmatched
- Production Scheduleunmatched
- Production Systemsunmatched
- Production Volumeunmatched
- Quality Managementunmatched
- Quality Metricsunmatched
- Regulatory Complianceunmatched
- Regulatory Requirementsunmatched
- Safety Complianceunmatched
- Safety Systemsunmatched
- Safety/Work Safetyunmatched
- Sanitationunmatched
- Spanish Languageunmatched
- Staff Trainingunmatched
- Team Lead/Managerunmatched
- United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)unmatched
- Warehousingunmatched
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