Plant Controller

Job Description:

The Plant Controller (Hybrid Plant Finance Leader) is an embedded, on-site FP&A leader who serves as the primary finance partner to plant leadership – supporting the Plant Director and functional leaders with decision-ready financial insight, forecasting, and operational performance management. This role owns the plant-level planning rhythm (budget, forecast, and driver-based outlooks), translates operational drivers into financial outcomes, and drives visibility to risks and opportunities across cost, margin, inventory performance, and capital.

The role is both a people leader for a small plant finance team and an individual contributor, and serves as the primary escalation point for plant finance questions, analytics, and performance management. The role is finance-only in scope and does not perform traditional accounting execution tasks (e.g., booking journal entries). Instead, the role partners closely with Accounting/Cost Accounting to ensure alignment between management views and statutory close outputs, and to support SOX-compliant processes and controls.

The role delivers standard KPI dashboards and digital reporting tools that create transparency to margin performance and plant cost drivers and is expected to be on-site 5 days per week initially. Hybrid flexibility may be considered after the role is fully ramped and the operating rhythm is stable. SAP proficiency is a major plus for this role.

Primary Duties

• Serve as the primary embedded finance partner to the Plant Director and plant leadership team; provide clear, actionable insights that improve decision-making, accountability, and plant performance.
• Own the plant forecasting and budgeting cadence: build and maintain driver-based forecasts, lead annual budget development at the plant level, and surface forward-looking implications (what is changing, why, and what happens next).
• Deliver performance management: produce timely variance analysis (actual vs. budget/forecast/prior), identify root causes, quantify financial impact, and recommend actions; ensure commentary is understandable to non-finance leaders.
• Own and deliver plant KPI dashboards and digital reporting tools (standard packages plus self-service views) that improve visibility to labor efficiency, overhead absorption, scrap/rework, inventory health, and margin performance; continuously enhance these tools to reduce manual effort and improve decision speed.
• Strengthen plant costing mechanics and margin visibility: explicitly monitor and explain overhead allocation/absorption behavior, labor efficiency, scrap/rework impacts, yield/throughput drivers, and resulting margin performance; translate variances into actions.
• Partner with Cost Accounting (process owner) to support the standard cost-setting cycle: provide operational/driver inputs, challenge and validate assumptions, identify when standards/routings no longer reflect reality, and ensure the management view of variances is explainable and decision-useful (no journal entry booking)
• Support plant inventory performance and working-capital drivers: monitor inventory accuracy/health KPIs, track drivers impacting inventory and COGS, and coordinate with Accounting/Cost Accounting on reconciliations and close alignment (without booking entries).
• Support annual physical inventory execution in partnership with Supply Chain (process owner) and Accounting/Internal Audit: provide readiness analytics, variance/root-cause analysis, reconciliation support, and follow-through tracking on corrective actions.
• Provide finance support for plant capex planning and reporting (in partnership with Engineering as project owner): ROI models, spend tracking vs. budget, and post-investment benefit tracking.
• Support budget justification packages for plant leadership: quantify resource requests, productivity initiatives, and capex/opex tradeoffs using clear driver logic and scenario analysis.
• Lead or drive cost reduction programs through direct engagement with production and support teams: identify savings opportunities, size the financial impact, track initiative performance versus targets, and report progress through dashboards and operating rhythms.
• Partner cross-functionally with Operations, Supply Chain, Engineering, and Production to understand cost drivers and evaluate improvement opportunities; participate in operating rhythms (daily/weekly huddles, production reviews) as needed to support decision-making.
• Ensure finance processes and plant performance reporting are SOX-aware and compliant with company policies: support control design/operation by partnering with Accounting and Internal Audit; identify and escalate control gaps and support timely remediation.
• Serve as the primary escalation point for plant finance questions, performance risks/opportunities, and analytical requests; ensure timely responses with clear recommendations and tradeoffs.
• Lead and develop a small plant finance team focused on FP&A / operational finance analytics (e.g., plant analyst(s), performance analyst(s)); ensure consistent forecasting, KPI reporting, and decision support cadence
• Serve as a plant finance SAP power user: translate plant needs into finance requirements, support reporting/data quality enhancements, and partner with IT/GPO on prioritization and adoption.
• Scope guardrails: This role provides finance leadership, analytics, and governance to enable strong plant performance. It does not assume functional ownership of Supply Chain execution, Engineering program management, SAP/GPO ownership, or accounting transaction processing.
• Performs other duties as assigned.

Job Requirements

Education:

Requires a bachelor’s degree in finance, Accounting, Business, or a related discipline; 8+ years of progressive experience in manufacturing finance, plant FP&A, cost/operations finance, or business partnering roles, or any combination of education and experience which would provide an equivalent background. Demonstrated ability to lead a small team while also operating as a hands-on individual contributor is required. Experience with plant costing, standard cost governance, supporting annual physical inventories, and leading cost reduction initiatives is strongly preferred. SAP proficiency (FI/CO and/or manufacturing-related modules/data flows) is a major plus. MBA, CPA, CMA, or similar certification preferred but not required.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Strong understanding of manufacturing financial drivers and plant KPIs (conversion cost, labor efficiency, overhead absorption behavior, material usage, scrap/rework, inventory and working-capital drivers).
• Advanced analytical and problem-solving capabilities; strong financial modeling skills and ability to perform scenario and sensitivity analyses.
• Demonstrated ability to build and maintain KPI dashboards, digital reporting tools, and standardized performance packages that are used in operating rhythms (daily/weekly/monthly).
• Ability to communicate complex financial information in plain language to plant leaders; strong presentation skills and executive presence.
• Strong collaboration and influencing skills; ability to build trust across operations and support decisions without formal authority.
• People leadership capability: hiring, coaching, prioritization, and quality control for a small plant finance team while also delivering individual-contributor analysis and executive-ready outputs.
• Ability to serve as a clear escalation point—triaging ambiguous questions, pulling together data quickly, and providing crisp recommendations under time pressure.
• Process discipline and attention to detail: documentation of assumptions, version control, and repeatable reporting routines.
• Comfort operating in environments with evolving systems and imperfect data; bias toward timely, directionally correct insights while improving precision over time.
• Strong proficiency in Microsoft Excel; experience with reporting/BI tools a plus; SAP proficiency is a major plus.

Essential Mental and Physical Functions:

• Frequent use of computer systems for analysis, modeling, and reporting.
• Ability to sit for extended periods and work with detailed information.
• Occasional standing/walking for meetings, presentations, and shop-floor engagement.
• Ability to manage multiple deadlines and maintain accuracy under pressure.

Work Environment:

• Work performed primarily on-site at a manufacturing location with regular interaction across plant functions and corporate finance.
• Expected on-site cadence is typically 4+ days per week.
• Regular engagement with plant teams and occasional visits to manufacturing areas.
• Exposure to dust, noise, or temperature variations during site visits; compliance with all applicable safety policies during operational site engagements.

Disclaimer:

Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at a time with or without notice. This job description is not an exhaustive list of all functions that the employee may be required to perform, and the employee may be required to perform additional functions. The company reserves the right to revise this job description at any time.  The employee must be able to perform the essential functions of the position satisfactorily. If requested, reasonable accommodations may be made to enable employees with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the job, absent undue hardship.

Acknowledgement:

I have read this job description (or had it read to me) and I fully understand all my job duties and responsibilities. I am able to perform the duties and responsibilities as outlined, with or without reasonable accommodation. I understand that my job duties and responsibilities may change on a temporary or regular basis according to the needs of my location or department and if so I will be required to perform such additional duties and responsibilities. If I have any questions about job duties not specified on this description that I am asked to perform, I should discuss them with my immediate supervisor or a member of the Human Resources staff.