Plant Manager
Winnebago, Minnesota | Full Time, Day Shift
Run the plant. Not a shift, not a department, the whole operation.
This facility has been building walk-in coolers and freezers since 1963, and is investing in automation and capacity across its five U.S. plants. What the plant needs now is a leader who can take a proven operation and make it measurably better: safer, leaner, more predictable, and a place people want to stay. If you have spent your career fixing plants that other people run, this is your chance to own one and put your name on the results.
What You Will Accomplish in Your First Year
Success in this role is defined by outcomes, not activities. Here is the work:
First 90 days: Learn the operation and earn the floor. Walk every process, work alongside every shift, and dig into the numbers behind schedule attainment, quality, overtime, safety, and attrition. Deliver a current-state assessment with a prioritized improvement plan that leadership can act on.
First 6 months: Make the schedule reliable. Hit production schedules and quality standards consistently while bringing labor overtime under control. Predictability is the foundation everything else gets built on.
First 6 months: Make the MRP system tell the truth. Audit bills of material, routings, and work standards in the MRP system (Microsoft AX) and drive real utilization across the process, so the plant plans from accurate data instead of tribal knowledge.
First year: Build the improvement engine. Stand up a working lean cadence where hourly employees and salaried staff at every level are engaged in continuous improvement. Shop floor organization and plant cleanliness should be visible proof that the culture is taking hold.
First year: Keep the team you build. Reduce attrition through better hiring, coaching, and performance management. Develop supervisors into leaders who can run their areas without you standing over them.
First year: Protect people and equipment. Meet or exceed EH&S goals through active engagement in safety initiatives, and implement preventive maintenance programs with sound capital recommendations for facilities and equipment.
Why This Role Is Worth Your Next Move
Full ownership. You direct production across hourly and salaried staff and answer for the plant's performance. No committee between you and the outcome.
A company that is investing, not coasting. Our client has expanded manufacturing and distribution capacity and put capital into automated panel production. You are improving a plant the company is betting on.
A legacy operation with room to modernize. Sixty years of manufacturing know-how plus a mandate for lean transformation. The wins are there to be taken, and they will be yours to point to.
Scale behind you. Our client runs manufacturing operations in five states with nearly 600 employees.
What You Bring
If you can do the work described above, we want to talk to you. Your background probably looks something like this:
A track record of improving plant performance: schedule attainment, quality, cost, safety, and retention that got better because you were there. Roughly 8 years in manufacturing methods and process improvement, including 5 years leading people.
Lean that you have applied, not just studied. Training in Lean Manufacturing, TPS, or Demand Flow, backed by large-scale process improvement wins delivered with cross-functional teams.
MRP fluency. Strong working command of MRP systems, ideally Microsoft AX, including material bills, routings, and work standards.
Communication and leadership that hold up on the floor. You are as credible with a machine operator as you are in a leadership review.
An engineering degree (BSIE or BSME) is preferred. Results matter more than the diploma.
This is an on-site leadership role. Expect to spend your day on your feet and on the floor.
The Bottom Line
If you can point to a plant that ran better because you ran it, and you want the next one to carry your fingerprints from the shop floor to the P&L, apply. This is the job where that record gets built.