Production Supervisor, Lasers
General Description:
The Production Supervisor is responsible for leading the daily operations of the laser department while ensuring a safe, productive, and quality-focused work environment. This position oversees laser technicians and operators, coordinates production schedules, ensures laser equipment is properly set up and production-ready, provides hands-on technical support, develops team capability, and drives continuous improvement to meet customer requirements and operational goals.
Responsibilities:
- Support and follow the Company Safety Programs and ensure employees follow all applicable safety procedures.
- Plan, organize, and oversee daily laser department operations to maintain efficient workflow and meet production requirements.
- Schedule daily work assignments, monitor staffing, and coordinate production priorities.
- Lead, coach, and develop the team, fostering a culture of accountability, safety, quality, and continuous improvement.
- Perform, support, and verify laser setups and changeovers, including material and program verification, required tooling or consumables, machine settings, first-piece approval, and quality checks.
- Serve as a hands-on technical resource for common laser cutting, machine, material-handling, and quality issues; troubleshoot problems and coordinate escalation when
- needed.
- Develop and maintain setup instructions, troubleshooting guides, and cross-training plans to strengthen department coverage.
- Coordinate with CNC Programming, Engineering, Quality, Production, and Maintenance when program revisions, nesting changes, equipment repairs, or process improvements are required.
- Monitor department productivity, quality, scrap, downtime, and efficiency, and lead corrective and continuous improvement actions.
- Coordinate maintenance activities and work with Maintenance to minimize equipment downtime and ensure preventive maintenance schedules are followed.
- Ensure compliance with company policies, safety requirements, quality standards, and customer requirements.
- Provide regular communication to leadership regarding department performance, staffing, production status, and significant equipment or quality concerns.
Qualifications and Experience:
- Associate degree in Manufacturing Technology, Engineering Technology, or a related field preferred; equivalent practical experience will be considered.
- Relevant experience in laser cutting, CNC manufacturing, fabrication, or a related production environment preferred.
- Demonstrated ability to safely perform and verify laser setups and changeovers, achieve first-piece approval, and troubleshoot common operating or quality issues.
- Ability to teach, coach, and qualify others on laser setup, operation, quality checks, and troubleshooting.
- Previous supervisory or team leadership experience preferred.
- CNC programming experience is preferred but not required; the ability to understand and work with programs during setup and troubleshooting is expected.
- Working knowledge of CNC coordinate systems, machine controls, programs, and cutting parameters sufficient to support setup and troubleshooting.
- Ability to read drawings, work instructions, and inspection requirements and use standard measuring tools.
- Strong leadership, communication, organization, troubleshooting, and problem-solving skills.
- Comfortable using machine interfaces, ERP or production software, and common computer applications.
- Willingness to work overtime and flexible hours as needed to support production.
Job Location:
Regular presence in manufacturing facilities.
Equipment Used:
Utilizes laser cutting systems, material-handling equipment, tooling and consumables, measuring and inspection equipment, computers with ERP and operational software, communication tools, and safety and monitoring equipment as required to oversee and optimize department operations.