Food & Beverage Plant Production Lead

Job Description

Job Description

Ready to lead a high-performing team and keep product flowing safely and on time?

As the Plant Production Lead, you report to the Production Manager and spend most of your time where it matters—on the floor—guiding a team of 3–30 people to deliver quality, speed, and reliability.

Your Impact

• Exceed customer expectations by running day-to-day operations with discipline and urgency.
• Lift output and asset utilization; cut waste, overtime, and avoidable costs without sacrificing quality.
• Assign resources smartly; monitor performance and act fast on deviations.
• Turn division strategy into clear direction, goals, and metrics for the team.
• Recruit, schedule, train, and develop employees; coach for skill growth and accountability.
• Analyze production data to locate bottlenecks and improvement opportunities; build systems that track standards, metrics, and performance targets.
• Maintain a customer-first mindset with both internal partners and external clients.
• Lead meetings to communicate goals, initiatives, and progress.
• Adhere to and enforce GMPs and SOPs; drive continuous improvement initiatives.
• Collaborate with the Production/Plant Manager and local leadership on needs and expense control.
• Develop methods that reduce/avoid costs, enhance product quality, and strengthen safety.

Safety Comes First

• Champion OSHA standards and site safety protocols (e.g., lockout/tagout).
• Serve on the Management Safety Team or assist the Plant Safety Committee.
• Model safe behaviors, set expectations, and hold the team accountable; continuously elevate safety performance.

Must-Have Qualifications

• 1–3 years of manufacturing experience.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office; willingness to learn new systems.
• Proven leadership with structured problem-solving skills and results orientation.
• Strong communication; effective with all levels of the organization and external stakeholders.
• Ability to work independently, build teams, make decisions, and lead by example.
• Solid grasp of budgeting, strategic planning, resource allocation, and HR basics.
• Comfort reading and interpreting complex documents and statistics; ability to request/build performance reports.
• Exceptional organization, prioritization, and time management.

Nice-to-Have

• Bachelor’s degree in business, engineering, or related field (preferred) or equivalent experience.
• Background in extrusion, plastic bag converting, or paper converting.

Core Skills

• Leadership / People Management
• Language: Spanish
• Food and Beverage Manufacturing
• Supervisory and Warehouse Experience
• Lean Manufacturing Principles
• Coaching, Mentoring, Scheduling
• Recruiting and Training

Technical & Compliance Knowledge

• Equipment capabilities and design for efficient operation and effective training.
• Cost analysis and daily decisions that lower total cost and pinpoint improvement areas.
• Budget development, adherence, and analysis.
• Quality standards, GMPs, SOPs.
• Regulatory requirements: wage/hour, environmental and waste minimization, company policies, and personnel requirements (OSHA, DEQ, EEO).

Communication, Math, and Reasoning

• Language: Read/interpret business periodicals, professional journals, technical procedures, governmental regulations; write reports and procedures; present to varied audiences.
• Mathematics: Strong with numbers and mathematical concepts.
• Reasoning: Define problems, collect data, establish facts, draw sound conclusions; interpret extensive technical instructions in written/diagram form.

Physical Demands

• Regularly talk and hear; frequently stand, walk, sit.
• Occasionally finger/handle/feel; reach; climb/balance; stoop/kneel/crouch/crawl.
• Lift/move up to 50 lbs.
• Vision: close, distance, color, peripheral, depth perception, focus adjustment.

Work Environment

• Regular exposure to moving mechanical parts.
• Frequent exposure to wet/humid conditions.
• Occasional exposure to high places, fumes/airborne particles, and vibration.
• Loud noise level.