Print Production Supervisor

You will own print production and color management for the entire company. You'll lead a 9-person team that runs our wide format digital printers across three shifts. You'll set the standard, build up and train the team leads, empower print technicians to make critical-to-quality decisions and ensure the printers are being utilized efficiently. You will also be expected to work closely with the print department engineer to continually improve our printing processes.

Key Responsibilities

What you'll do

Own color consistency

• Partner with business leaders in defining specifications, tolerances, and limits.
• Develop methods to consistently evaluate color quality against specifications.
• Build ICC profiles, through linearization and calibration routines to ensure color consistency across multiple machines, and media.

• Improve current machine capability to meet production targets for quality, quantity, and cost.
• Continually evaluate new technologies/equipment with goal of improving process capability, consistency, and quality.
• Partner with engineering to implement RIP software, bringing color expertise for calibration, validation, documentation and training.
• Use Photoshop to adjust master files for color as needed, working with our Photoshop specialist who builds the images, and keep master files under version control.
• Run root-cause investigations on color issues, and partner with our maintenance team and the press manufacturer on preventive maintenance for heads, lamps and ink systems.

Vision, KPIs and daily operations

• Set the area vision and KPIs that drive the right behaviors (color pass rate, first-pass yield, reprints, scrap, uptime), review them weekly with the team lead, and refine them each quarter.
• Report weekly on area process audits, and use corrective actions to drive process improvement.

Developing people

• Lead, hire, coach and schedule the team across day, swing and night shifts.
• Review the team training matrix with team leads and close skill gaps.
• Hold monthly 1:1s and personal development plans with each direct report, plus one skip-level 1:1 each month.
• Give operators the time, tools and skills to make their own improvements.

Culture and morale

• Run a monthly lunch and learn to build skills, celebrate wins and recognize contributions.
• Coach team leads on a respectful, inclusive and positive team, address conflicts in line with Client principles, and model company values.

Required Qualifications

• 7+ years in wide-format or industrial inkjet printing, with 4+ years leading a team.
• Hands-on experience with UV/LED wide-format printers.
• Strong color management skills: ICC profiling, spectrophotometers - Barbieri and Nix, Delta E and G7 or ISO 12647 concepts.
• Experience using RIP software and Photoshop.
• Previous manufacturing experience with a track record of improving quality and reducing waste with data and KPIs.
• Lean, Six Sigma, DOE, DMAIC or similar quality improvement/ problem solving focused training.
• Strong people skills: you know how to set expectations, give feedback, and bring out the best in others.
• A mindset focused on safety, quality, and continuous improvement.
• Experience coaching team leads and using structured problem solving, visual management and 5S.
• Normal color vision. Candidates will take a color vision test (such as the Farnsworth-Munsell 100 Hue test) as part of the interview process.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience printing decorative surfaces, laminates or building products, or managing color across multiple locations.

Experience leading a software or RIP migration.

G7 Professional or G7 Expert certification from Idealliance.