Facility Startup Manager

RJW Logistics Group•Elk Grove Township, IL

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Facility Startup Manager is a strategic, exempt-level role responsible for leading the end-to-end startup readiness and go-live execution for new warehouse facilities across the RJW network. This role serves as the primary program lead for facility startups, bringing structure, accountability, and cross-functional coordination to every launch. The Facility Startup Manager ensures each startup is planned, sequenced, and executed in a way that aligns construction readiness, operational requirements, systems readiness, training, procurement, customer needs, and launch timing into a single coordinated process. Working closely with the VP of Facilities, who leads construction and racking coordination, this position owns the broader startup readiness program around the building. This individual ensures the many moving parts required to open a new facility are aligned, risks are surfaced early, decisions are driven to closure, and go-lives are executed with discipline. This role will work heavily across Warehouse Operations, IT, HR, Training, Procurement, Customer teams, and site leadership to ensure new facilities are not only physically ready, but operationally ready to perform. The Facility Startup Manager is expected to travel to startup locations, lead in-market execution, and remain engaged through stabilization until the facility is transitioned into steady-state operations.

Requirements

Strong program and project management capability, with the ability to manage complex, cross-functional initiatives involving multiple stakeholders, dependencies, and deadlines.
Strong understanding of warehouse and distribution operations, startup sequencing, operational readiness, and go-live execution.
Ability to drive coordination and accountability across functions without direct authority.
Strong organizational discipline, including experience building project plans, readiness trackers, issue logs, risk registers, and executive status updates.
Ability to identify risks early, escalate effectively, and drive practical resolution in fast-moving environments.
Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to work effectively with executives, site leaders, corporate functions, vendors, and customer-facing teams.
Ability to operate at both strategic and execution levels, translating broad startup goals into detailed action plans and day-to-day follow-up.
Strong change management and operational readiness mindset, ensuring facilities are prepared not just to open, but to perform.
Ability to coordinate startup efforts across construction-adjacent, operational, systems, training, and customer workstreams without losing alignment.
Demonstrated ownership, urgency, and follow-through in high-accountability environments.
Willingness and ability to travel frequently to startup sites and spend meaningful time on-site during launch and stabilization periods.
Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain, Operations Management, Business Administration, Industrial Engineering, or a related field required.
7–10 years of progressive experience in warehousing, logistics, distribution, implementation, transformation, or facility startup leadership roles.
Demonstrated experience leading multi-site launches, facility startups, go-lives, major operational implementations, or comparable cross-functional deployment efforts.
Experience coordinating cross-functional teams across operations, facilities, systems, training, procurement, and customer-facing workstreams strongly preferred.
Experience in warehouse or logistics environments required; 3PL experience strongly preferred.
Experience with warehouse systems, startup readiness, cutover planning, and post-go-live stabilization preferred.
Experience with Synapse or similar WMS platforms preferred.
Project management, Lean, Six Sigma, or related operational improvement experience preferred.

Nice To Haves

Experience coordinating cross-functional teams across operations, facilities, systems, training, procurement, and customer-facing workstreams strongly preferred.
3PL experience strongly preferred.
Experience with warehouse systems, startup readiness, cutover planning, and post-go-live stabilization preferred.
Experience with Synapse or similar WMS platforms preferred.
Project management, Lean, Six Sigma, or related operational improvement experience preferred.

Responsibilities

Lead end-to-end startup planning and execution for new RJW warehouse facilities from project initiation through go-live and post-launch stabilization.
Develop and maintain the integrated startup plan for each facility, including milestones, dependencies, owners, risk registers, readiness trackers, and escalation paths.
Establish and manage a formal startup governance process that brings together all participating functions under a single execution framework.
Drive startup readiness reviews and stage-gate checkpoints, ensuring unresolved risks, missing deliverables, or incomplete prerequisites are identified and addressed before go-live.
Serve as the single point of accountability for startup execution cadence, status communication, issue resolution, and decision follow-through across departments.
Ensure each startup follows a repeatable, scalable process while still adapting appropriately to customer, building, and operational differences.
Partner closely with the VP of Facilities to align construction, racking, layout readiness, vendor activity, and facility turnover timing with the broader operational startup plan.
Coordinate with Warehouse Operations leadership to ensure labor planning, startup sequencing, operating assumptions, and site readiness align with launch requirements.
Partner with IT and systems teams to ensure required infrastructure, hardware, printers, RF devices, workstations, network readiness, integrations, system configurations, and cutover activities are completed on time.
Work with Training and operational leadership to ensure onboarding plans, startup training materials, job aids, and role readiness are in place ahead of launch.
Coordinate with Procurement and supporting functions to ensure supplies, equipment, consumables, furniture, signage, and startup materials are ordered, delivered, and available when needed.
Partner with customer-facing teams to coordinate customer launch requirements, timing, communication, service expectations, and readiness dependencies tied to each startup.
Work across HR, Operations, Safety, Finance, Engineering, and other supporting teams to align staffing, compliance, equipment, and startup support needs.
Build strong working relationships across departments and act as the connective point that keeps all stakeholders aligned around startup priorities.
Ensure each facility has the operational processes, SOPs, startup checklists, workflows, and documentation needed to support day-one execution.
Coordinate startup activities required to prepare the site for productive operations, including process setup, physical readiness, supply staging, equipment availability, and launch sequencing.
Partner with operational and systems teams to support testing, validation, user acceptance activities, and launch readiness confirmation before startup.
Travel to startup sites to lead or coordinate on-site readiness, cutover support, launch execution, and immediate post-go-live issue management.
Drive startup stabilization activities after launch, including issue tracking, action plan ownership, daily follow-up, and coordination of resources required to close gaps.
Monitor startup performance against initial expectations and escalate issues quickly when execution, service, safety, or readiness is at risk.
Support transition of the facility from startup mode into stable operating ownership once processes, people, and performance are sufficiently established.
Build and continuously improve a standardized RJW facility startup playbook that defines the required process, workstreams, milestones, and ownership model for future launches.
Document lessons learned from each startup and convert them into improved templates, checklists, governance routines, and readiness standards.
Identify recurring startup gaps, execution bottlenecks, and cross-functional breakdowns, and recommend process changes that improve future launch performance.
Help create a more disciplined, repeatable startup model across the network so new facility openings become more predictable, scalable, and operationally sound.