Materials and Warehouse Manager

Job Title:  Materials and Warehouse Manager

Position Summary

The Materials Manager is responsible for leading all internal material flow and warehouse operations within the DeKalb IL. facility, ensuring materials are properly stored, staged, and delivered to production in a controlled, organized, and safe manner.

This role will establish and enforce material flow processes and improvements across the plant, with direct leadership of material handlers and ownership of warehouse organization, production staging, and internal material movement. The Materials and Warehouse Manager will play a critical role in stabilizing warehouse operations, improving material flow and storage, and driving process discipline during a period of plant optimization and organizational growth.

A key expectation of this role is to create and sustain a high standard of order, organization, and safety within the warehouse and material flow processes, ensuring a clean, structured environment that supports efficient operations and reduces risk.

While Shipping and Receiving functions operate within Logistics, this role is accountable for the seamless handoff of materials into internal operations and for maintaining alignment with cross-functional partners including Production, Quality, Inventory Control, and Logistics.

Success in this role requires a hands-on leader who can quickly assess gaps, implement structure, enforce standards, and drive accountability across functions in a dynamic manufacturing environment.

Material Flow & Process Discipline

· Establish, implement, and enforce standardized material flow processes from warehouse through production staging and internal movement.

· Ensure material movement is controlled, organized, and executed in a safe and repeatable manner.

· Eliminate ad hoc material handling practices that create disorder, inefficiency, or safety risk.

· Ensure materials are staged accurately, safely, and on time to support production.

Warehouse Operations

· Own warehouse organization, layout, and location control.

· Establish and maintain a high standard of order, cleanliness, and visual organization across all storage and staging areas.

· Implement visual management and standard work to sustain organization and eliminate reliance on tribal knowledge.

· Ensure a safe working environment by maintaining clear aisles, proper material storage, and adherence to safety standards.

· Drive discipline in how materials are stored, handled, and moved to minimize risk and inefficiency.

· Ensure all material movements are executed with accurate and timely system transactions through direct team execution and cross-functional coordination.

· Drive accountability for transaction compliance across Production and Materials Movement teams.

· Identify and resolve gaps between physical flow and system data.

Team Leadership

· Lead, train, and develop material handlers.

· Establish clear expectations for performance, discipline, and process adherence.

· Build a culture of ownership and accountability.

· Partner with Production, Quality, Inventory Control, and Logistics to improve communication and execution.

· Ensure alignment on material priorities, staging, and process expectations.

· Identify and eliminate unauthorized material movement, substitutions, and workarounds.

· Drive root cause analysis and implement corrective actions.

· Enforce adherence to defined processes as a core operational expectation.

· Partner with Inventory Control to address root causes of discrepancies.

· Drive upstream process improvements that improve inventory accuracy outcomes.

First 90-Day Priorities

· Assess current warehouse organization, material flow, and safety conditions.

· Establish baseline standards for order, organization, and safe material handling practices.

· Implement clear ownership and expectations for maintaining a clean, structured, and safe work environment.

· Stabilize material flow to reduce production disruption and firefighting.

· Implement expectations and accountability for transaction discipline.

· Build strong working relationships across Production, Inventory Control, and Logistics.

Qualifications & Experience

· 8–12+ years of experience in manufacturing materials management, warehouse operations, or material flow leadership.

· Proven experience improving material flow, warehouse organization, and transaction discipline in a manufacturing environment.

· Demonstrated ability to stabilize and improve operations in environments with limited structure or high variability.

· Strong understanding of ERP systems (D365 preferred) and material transaction processes.

· Experience leading warehouse or materials teams.

Leadership Profile

· Strong experience fixing material flow and transaction discipline in manufacturing environments.

· Ability to operate effectively in fast-paced and/or evolving environments.

· Ability to quickly assess situations, identify root causes, and implement practical solutions.

· A bias for action with the ability to implement improvements quickly.

· A no-nonsense approach to enforcing standards while building credibility with cross-functional teams.