Plant Manager

Plant Manager

The Plant Manager leads day-to-day plant operations for a Topeka-area precision-equipment manufacturer. The role is broader than pure production oversight: it includes direct supervision of plant personnel, ownership of purchasing/material flow and inventory availability, and responsibility for raising the level of quality and process discipline across the operation.

This role will work closely with R&D, design, and electrical engineering teams as products move from concept to build, while also partnering with sales and service to ensure customer needs are met. The business needs a leader who can reduce finger-pointing, improve operating rhythm, and build tighter controls in a growth-oriented environment.

Mission

Improve plant execution and customer responsiveness by building stronger quality systems, cleaner processes, better inventory/material control, and more reliable on-time shipment performance.

• Responsibilities
• Lead and develop approximately 20 direct and indirect labor employees.
• Own day-to-day plant operations, including production execution, materials flow, and customer-driven fulfillment priorities.
• Partner with purchasing and quality functions to improve control, visibility, and responsiveness.
• Improve on-time delivery, inventory turns, operational efficiency, and overall plant metrics.
• Drive tighter quality systems and move the operation from reactive problem-solving to more disciplined controls.
• Support ERP / systems adoption and help transition paper-heavy processes into more structured workflows.
• Work cross-functionally with engineering/R&D on sourcing, manufacturability, and concept-to-build execution.
• Improve collaboration with sales, service, and operations partners to solve problems constructively and quickly.
• Support SKU rationalization, obsolete inventory reduction, and broader plant/process improvement initiatives.

Required

• Demonstrated plant, manufacturing, or operations leadership experience with direct people-management scope.
• Strong quality-systems and process-discipline orientation.
• Experience with inventory, materials, purchasing, or order-fulfillment ownership in manufacturing.
• Ability to work effectively across engineering, sales, service, and operations.
• Strong communication, mentoring, and change-leadership skills.
• Ability to work onsite in the Topeka area.

Preferred

• FAA, aerospace, or similarly detail-heavy regulated-quality experience.
• ERP/MRP implementation or system-maturity experience.
• Agriculture, precision-ag, sprayer, crop-duster, or related equipment exposure.
• Background in electromechanical, controls, fluid-handling, or industrial assembly environments.

Location / Remote

• Topeka area; role appears to be primarily onsite.

*Candidates must be eligible to work in the US as well as meet the qualifications listed above in order to be considered for the Plant Manager job.

Job Id: 17974