VP, Manufacturing

Who is Prince?

Founded in 1959 by Ed Miller near Chicago, Prince Industries has grown from a one-man shop into a global manufacturing partner. With seven facilities across the U.S. and China, we serve industries from hydraulics to aerospace, handling everything from just-in-time components to high-volume assemblies.

At Prince, we don’t just make parts—we solve complex supply chain challenges. We are a strategic partner, focused on helping clients improve products, reduce costs, and simplify operations. Certified to ISO 9001:2015, ISO 13485, and AS9100 standards, we combine quality, innovation, and growth-minded thinking to deliver real value.

Job Summary

The VP, Manufacturing will oversee the site leader at each of six machining and fabrication plants in a high-growth precision manufacturing company. The scope of control will include Production, Scheduling, Manufacturing Engineering, CNC Programming, Shipping/Receiving, Safety, Facilities, and Maintenance. This role is responsible for driving monthly revenue and EBITDA budget attainment, capacity alignment, continuous improvement, KPI development, organization design, and standardization of best practices across the sites.

The ideal candidate is a hands-on leader with deep experience in Plant Leadership, Machining, Fabrication, Capacity Planning, Scheduling, Manufacturing Engineering, and ERP. This individual will partner closely with Supply Chain, Quality, Finance, Sales, and Executive Leadership to align plant performance with business objectives and customer requirements.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide leadership, guidance, and oversight to six manufacturing plants.
• Develop, optimize, and manage KPI’s for continuous improvement, machine capacity, labor capacity, efficiency, utilization, productivity, and safety. Standardize KPI’s and dashboards across all plants in partnership with IT.
• Evaluate plant org structures and optimize them for efficiency, effectiveness, and cost.
• Continuously identify cost and throughput improvement opportunities. Ensure resources are assigned and project plans are visible, tracked, and executed on time and budget.
• Demonstrate a high EQ; enabling effective listening, communication, and change management across the different levels and leadership styles across the six plants.
• Instill a data-driven, proactive, solutions-oriented mindset into site leadership teams.
• Develop, mentor, and hold accountable all team members. Build a culture of urgency, ownership, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Provide written and/or oral reports on plans and results to the Executive Team and the Board of Directors.

Required Experience & Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering or related field required.
• 5+ years of multi-site Manufacturing leadership, with significant experience in precision machining environments that serve Aerospace, Defense, or MedTech required.
• Demonstrable experience improving factory performance (quality, delivery, lead time, scheduling, gross margin) while revenue is growing 15-20% per year.
• Experience successfully integrating acquisitions into a plant portfolio.
• Strong knowledge of machining (aluminum, titanium, stainless steel, nickel alloys) and machine tools (VMC, HMC, 5-AXIS, Mill-Turn, Lathe, Swiss).
• Experience building and aligning KPI’s across multiple manufacturing plants.
• Strong business acumen with the ability to connect decisions to cost, delivery, quality, customer satisfaction, and profitability.
• Excellent leadership, communication, problem-solving, and change management skills.

Preferred Experience

• Familiarity with AS9100 QMS systems
• Experience operating within an ITAR environment
• Experience in a high growth (15%+ per year) manufacturing company
• Epicor Kinetic or similar ERP
• Experience operating in $150M-$300M revenue Private Equity backed companies

Key Competencies

• Strategic and tactical multi-plant leadership
• Knowledge of Aerospace and Defense precision machining and fabrication
• Continuous improvement mindset
• Data-driven decision-making
• Cross-functional communication
• Change management and team development

Success Measures

• Uniform KPI’s in place at each plant to measure and improve gross margin, capacity, variances, safety, efficiency, utilization, and productivity
• Reduce volume-adjusted direct and indirect labor costs by 5% by driving efficiencies, process improvements, and automation.
• Develop a CAPEX strategy to ensure CAPEX spend is less than 5% of sales.
• Past due orders sustained at less than 2% of monthly sales and OTD at 95%.
• Minimum of 2 shifts fully operational across all sites.
• Objective feedback from executives and site leaders confirming success.

Due to ITAR regulations, only U.S. persons—defined as U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents (Green Card holders), and U.S. nationals—are eligible for this position.

*We are an Equal Employment Opportunity ("EEO") Employer. Applicants can learn more about Prince's status as an equal opportunity employer by viewing the federal "EEO is the Law" poster ( )