Job Description:
Plant Finance Manager - Steel Frame Manufacturing
Location: Texas (TBD)
Reports to: Director of Finance (with a dotted-line to the Plant General Manager)
Position Summary
The Plant Finance Manager serves as the senior financial leader at the steel-frame manufacturing facility and a key member of the plant leadership team. This role drives financial performance, operational profitability, cost discipline, and internal-control excellence in a coil-fed, roll-forming production environment. The Finance Manager partners closely with Operations, Supply Chain, and Sales to improve margins, manage steel commodity-cost exposure, optimize working capital, and support strategic growth initiatives.
This is a hands-on individual-contributor role responsible for plant-level financial management, standard-cost accounting for roll-formed steel products, forecasting, compliance, and business decision support.
Key Responsibilities
Financial Leadership & Strategy
- Serve as a strategic advisor to the Plant General Manager on financial performance, risk management, capital allocation, and profitability improvement.
- Translate operational performance-including line uptime, changeover time, and coil utilization-into financial impact and actionable insights.
- Lead financial modeling and ROI analysis for capital investments, including roll-forming line upgrades, tooling changes, and continuous-improvement initiatives.
- Assess and report on steel commodity-price exposure (hot-rolled, cold-rolled, and galvanized coil) and support hedging or pass-through pricing strategies in coordination with Sales and Procurement.
- Prioritize tasks effectively and manage competing deadlines to drive results independently.
Cost Accounting & Operational Finance
Own and maintain the standard-cost system, including:
- Labor, material (coil steel, coatings, and fasteners), and overhead standards.
- PPV and manufacturing-variance analysis, with particular focus on steel-input price volatility.
- Absorption analysis across roll-forming lines and product families.
- Inventory valuation and reserves for raw coil, work in process (WIP), and finished steel-frame components.
- Analyze scrap, yield, coil-to-finished-product conversion efficiency, labor efficiency, throughput, and overhead utilization by line.
- Monitor gauge/width yield loss and tooling changeover costs as key cost drivers.
- Drive cost-reduction initiatives and margin-improvement strategies specific to roll-forming operations.
- Partner with Operations to identify and execute productivity improvements, including line-speed optimization and reduced changeover downtime.
Budgeting, Forecasting & Reporting
- Lead the annual operating plan and rolling-forecast processes, incorporating steel-market pricing trends and lead-time volatility.
- Provide monthly performance analysis, including price, volume, mix, labor, overhead, and steel-input cost variances; margin by product, customer, and gauge specification; and working-capital trends, including raw-coil inventory levels and positioning.
- Deliver accurate and timely financial statements in accordance with GAAP.
- Develop KPI dashboards aligned with plant-performance objectives, including yield percentage, scrap rate, on-time delivery, and cost per ton or unit.
Working Capital & Asset Management
- Monitor and optimize raw-coil and finished-goods inventory levels, accuracy, and turns.
- Oversee cycle-count processes and fixed-asset controls, including roll-forming tooling and die inventory.
- Improve cash flow through disciplined accounts receivable, accounts payable, and inventory management.
- Ensure strong internal controls in compliance with SOX requirements.
Compliance & Controls
- Serve as the site lead for internal and external audits.
- Ensure adherence to GAAP, SOX, and corporate policies.
- Strengthen the internal-control environment and drive continuous process improvement.
Qualifications
Required
- Bachelor's degree in Accounting or Finance.
- 8-10 years of progressive accounting or finance experience.
- 3-5 years of experience in a manufacturing environment with full plant-level financial responsibility.
- Strong standard-cost accounting experience.
- Deep understanding of GAAP and SOX.
- Strong command of Microsoft Excel.
Preferred
- Background in heavy steel manufacturing, metal forming, or roll-forming operations.
- Familiarity with coil processing, gauge/tolerance specifications, and steel commodity-pricing dynamics.
- CPA and/or MBA.
- Experience with ERP systems in a manufacturing environment.
- Experience in a public-company reporting environment.
- Fluent in Chine (Mandarin).
Key Competencies
- Strong operational-finance mindset with fluency in steel-manufacturing cost drivers.
- Strategic thinker with hands-on execution capability.
- Data-driven decision maker.
- Continuous-improvement orientation.
- Ability to influence plant leadership.
- High ethical standards and control discipline.
- Self-directed, with the ability to prioritize and manage multiple deadlines.
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