Operations Manager

Anglo American / De Beers Group•Portland, OR

23d•Onsite

About The Position

Element Six is seeking an Operations Manager to lead the production organization in a 24/7 environment. This role involves direct accountability for the safety and occupational health of all department employees. The Operations Manager will act as second-in-command to the General Manager for operational matters, providing visible leadership, clear decision-making, and effective site coordination, deputizing when required. The position owns Utilisation performance and associated operating routines, measures, and improvement plans, ensuring available capacity is safely and reliably converted to technically compliant product. This role translates demand and capacity requirements into robust production plans, schedules, and resource priorities, maintaining disciplined execution, recovery, and escalation routines. The Operations Manager will lead, motivate, and develop a production team of approximately 40 people, including the Production Manager and front-line leaders, setting clear objectives, building capability, and holding the organization accountable. Collaboration with the Engineering & Maintenance Manager and the Process Engineering Manager is key to improving overall equipment effectiveness and removing systemic constraints. As a key member of the site leadership team, the Operations Manager will contribute to site HSE performance, strategy implementation, investment planning, operational excellence, organizational effectiveness, and long-term capability development. Responsibilities include production volumes, labor and operational costs, planning adherence, quality and delivery KPIs, and budget delivery. The role requires establishing clear performance-management routines and using data to identify losses, prioritize actions, and drive sustained continuous improvement using Business Excellence principles and tools. Building effective interfaces with Supply Chain, Maintenance, Engineering, Quality, R&D, external suppliers, and other CVD sites is crucial. The Operations Manager will lead recruitment, succession planning, performance management, coaching, and development across the operational team, fostering an inclusive, accountable, and high-performing culture. Ownership of complex production issues and cross-functional improvement initiatives, balancing immediate operational recovery with lasting improvements to systems, standards, and performance, is expected.

Requirements

At least 10 years’ experience in operations / manufacturing leadership roles within a complex production environment, including substantial responsibility for 24/7 operations & teams of more than 30 people.
A degree in Engineering or an equivalent technical or operational discipline.
A strong track record of delivering results across safety, quality, delivery, cost, people and continuous improvement.
Demonstrated ability to make clear decisions under pressure and leading through ambiguity and change.
Strong production-planning, capacity-management and performance-management capability, supported by good financial judgement.
Strong technical aptitude and an ability to work effectively across production, maintenance, engineering, supply chain and quality functions.
Excellent leadership, communication and stakeholder-management skills, with a collaborative style and the confidence to hold others to account.
Project-management capability, competence in MS Office and manufacturing systems, and willingness to travel occasionally.

Responsibilities

Lead the production organisation in a 24/7 environment, with direct accountability for the safety and occupational health of all department employees.
Act as second-in-command to the General Manager for operational matters, providing visible leadership, clear decision-making and effective site coordination; deputise when required.
Own Utilisation performance and the associated operating routines, measures and improvement plans, ensuring available capacity is converted safely and reliably to technically compliant product.
Translate demand and capacity requirements into robust production plans, schedules and resource priorities; maintain disciplined execution, recovery and escalation routines.
Lead, motivate and develop a production team of ca. 40 people, including the Production Manager and front-line leaders; set clear objectives, build capability and hold the organisation to account.
Work in close partnership with the Engineering & Maintenance Manager, who owns Availability, and the Process Engineering Manager, who owns Yield, to improve overall equipment effectiveness and remove systemic constraints.
Be a key member of the site leadership team, contributing to site HSE performance, strategy implementation, investment planning, operational excellence, organisational effectiveness and long-term capability development.
Hold responsibility for production volumes, labour and operational cost, planning adherence, quality and delivery KPIs, and delivery of the department budget.
Establish clear performance-management routines and use data to identify losses, prioritise actions and drive sustained continuous improvement using Business Excellence principles and tools.
Build effective interfaces with Supply Chain, Maintenance, Engineering, Quality, R&D, external suppliers and other CVD sites so that ORTEC provides in-spec material in line with agreed customer and downstream-site requirements.
Lead recruitment, succession planning, performance management, coaching and development across the operational team, creating an inclusive, accountable and high-performing culture.
Take ownership of complex production issues and cross-functional improvement initiatives, balancing immediate operational recovery with lasting improvements to systems, standards and performance.