Operations Manager

Operations Manager

Every day, millions of people interact with Lozier products without even realizing it. From the shelving in retail stores to the storage systems powering warehouses and online fulfillment, our products keep retail moving. If you've shopped in a store or ordered online, chances are you've experienced what we build.

For 70 years and counting, Lozier Corporation has been the industry leader trusted by top brands across the country. Headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, with facilities nationwide, we combine innovation, advanced manufacturing, and a people-centric culture to shape the future of retail. At Lozier, you'll join a team that designs industry-leading solutions, builds products retailers and warehouses depend on, and be part of a company that prioritizes growth and development of its workforce.

The Operations Manager is a strategic and hands-on leader responsible for overseeing end-to-end manufacturing operations across multiple production areas. This role ensures that production teams consistently meet or exceed performance metrics in safety, quality, delivery, cost, and morale (SQDCM) while driving a culture of operational excellence, accountability, and innovation. The Operations Manager serves as a key liaison between plant leadership and production execution to guide, develop, and mentor cross-functional teams to align daily operations with long-term business objectives. This role leverages manufacturing technologies and continuous improvement methodologies to enhance productivity, reduce waste, and sustain competitive advantage in a fast-paced manufacturing environment.

Essential Job Functions:

• Demonstrate leadership by championing Lozier's Mission, Vision, and Values and living the Lozier Leadership Model.
• Direct and support managers and supervisors in achieving daily and long-range performance targets for safety, quality, delivery, cost, and morale (SQDCM).
• Translate plant-level objectives into actionable plans aligned with operational key performance indicators (KPIs) and strategic growth initiatives.
• Foster a high-performance culture grounded in continuous improvement, employee development, and team accountability.
• Oversee workforce planning, shift scheduling, and resource allocation to ensure optimal equipment and labor utilization across all departments.
• Champion lean manufacturing initiatives, including 5S, Kaizen events, and waste reduction efforts to enhance throughput and reduce operational costs.
• Monitor and improve overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) by addressing root causes of downtime, inefficiencies, and scrap.
• Ensure integration and effective use of supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), enterprise resource planning (ERP), manufacturing execution systems (MES), and other digital platforms for real-time production monitoring, reporting, and decision-making.
• Lead readiness and adoption of automated systems, including automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS), to improve logistics, inventory management, and material flow.
• Drive adherence to safety policies and regulatory standards while cultivating a zero-incident safety culture.
• Support execution of advanced product quality planning (APQP) processes to maintain product and process integrity from prototype through full production.
• Ensure training, audits, and documentation meet internal and external quality expectations (ISO 9001, PPAP, FMEA, SPC, etc.).
• Partner with multidisciplinary teams to troubleshoot issues, deploy solutions, and streamline workflows.
• Support capital investment projects, plant expansions, or retooling efforts, ensuring alignment with production capacity and business needs.
• Demonstrate regular attendance and timeliness in reporting to work, meetings, and completing assignments.
• Ability to work and interact well with others.

Other Job Functions:

• Lead strategic and budgetary planning sessions along with associated plan execution, including leading and lagging metric definition, alignment, and deployment.
• May participate in collective bargaining process.

Job Qualifications:

Education: Bachelor degree in business, finance, engineering, manufacturing, operations management, or another related field is preferred.

Experience: Minimum of 8 years of progressive experience in engineering, maintenance, manufacturing, operations, or equivalent experience, if degreed. Minimum of 12 years of progressive experience in manufacturing, operations, or equivalent experience, if non-degreed. At least 3 years of experience in a multi-team or area leadership capacity is required.

Required Skills:

• Proficient PC skills (Microsoft Excel, Word, Outlook).
• Exceptional leadership, analytical, and change management skills.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills.
• Proven success leading cross-functional teams in high-volume, fast-paced production environments utilizing safety, quality, delivery, cost, and morale (SQDCM) models.
• Analytical/quantitative problem resolution.
• Ability to recognize waste and/or losses and identify solutions to reduce or minimize losses through recognition, utilization and prioritization of resources.
• Ability to work as a team across all functionalities of the business.
• Demonstrated understanding of production planning, scheduling, and execution, including capacity planning.
• Ability to drive continuous improvement.

Preferred Skills:

• Strong knowledge of quality systems, regulatory compliance, and continuous improvement methodologies (Six Sigma, Lean, APQP, FMEA, PPAP).
• Expertise in Lean Manufacturing, OEE, SCADA, MES systems, and performance metrics (SQDCM, KPI dashboards).
• Working knowledge of industrial manufacturing processes related to metal stamping including welders, brake presses, roll formers, punch presses, paint lines, lasers, CNC equipment and dies.
• Bilingual skills.

Special Demands:

• Must demonstrate adaptability and responsiveness to off-schedule requests or emergencies in support of business-critical functions.
• Must maintain a valid driver's license.
• Ability to navigate manufacturing environments, including frequent floor presence, walking, standing, and collaboration with shift teams.
• Occasional time spent working a flexible schedule depending on production needs.
• Ability to travel as necessary.

The above job description is meant to describe the general nature and level of work being performed. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties and skills required for the position. Employees will be required to follow any other job-related instructions and to perform other job-related duties as assigned by their supervisor. Lozier reserves the right to modify, interpret, or apply this job description in any way desired and the essential job functions may be modified to reasonably accommodate qualified individuals with a disability. Requirements are representative of minimum levels of knowledge, skills and/or abilities. To perform this job successfully, the employee must possess the abilities or aptitudes to perform each duty proficiently. Successful completion of pre-hire drug screen and post offer background screen is required to obtain employment. Continued employment remains on an "at-will" basis.