Plant Controller - Bonner Springs, KS or Dallas, TX
About The Position
The Plant Controller provides financial leadership to the plant and serves as a key member of the plant leadership team and the Plant Manager’s primary finance partner and co-pilot. The role develops a deep understanding of plant operations, connects operational performance to financial outcomes, identifies risks and opportunities, and partners across functions to improve business performance. The position is based on-site at either the Bonner Springs, Kansas plant or the Dallas, Texas plant, with travel among assigned facilities as needed. The Plant Controller leads financial analysis and decision support, drives plant cost and productivity improvement, owns key financial measures and the annual planning and forecasting processes, and helps hold the organization accountable for committed results. The role also owns the plant’s monthly close and reporting, manufacturing cost accounting, financial data integrity, and controls over key plant processes. The position supports food safety, quality standards, and the legality of manufactured products, and performs other job-related duties as assigned.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in accounting, finance, or a related field.
- At least 10 years of progressive finance or accounting experience, including meaningful manufacturing or plant finance experience.
- Strong understanding of manufacturing operations, cost accounting, standard costing, forecasting, inventory, financial controls, and performance analysis.
- Demonstrated ability to lead and influence cross-functionally, including with non-finance leaders.
- Strong analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills, including the ability to translate complex information into clear business actions and constructively challenge assumptions.
- Strong Excel and ERP capabilities.
- Ability to work on-site in a manufacturing environment and travel among assigned facilities as needed.
Nice To Haves
- CPA, CMA, MBA, or other relevant advanced degree or certification.
- Food manufacturing, consumer products, or process-manufacturing experience.
- Previous Plant Controller, Plant Finance Manager, or Operations Finance leadership experience.
- SAP or comparable manufacturing ERP experience.
- Experience with Lean, continuous improvement, capital investment, ERP implementation, or business transformation.
Responsibilities
- Serve as the plant’s finance leader and the Plant Manager’s co-pilot, providing financial insight, constructive challenge, and leadership in key business decisions.
- Participate as an engaged member of the plant leadership team, partnering with Operations, Supply Chain, Quality, Engineering, Maintenance, Human Resources, Safety, and other functions.
- Develop an understanding of plant operations, including production, labor, materials, yield, waste, throughput, downtime, capacity, and inventory.
- Participate in daily (L2), weekly (L3), and monthly (L4) Rise Recipe tier reviews; follow Finance Leader Standard Work and maintain a visible presence through regular plant-floor engagement.
- Connect operational performance to cost, margin, productivity, working capital, and cash flow, translating risks and opportunities into actions, owners, and expected outcomes.
- Build financial understanding and accountability throughout the plant leadership team.
- Lead financial analysis and business partnership to improve plant cost, productivity, margin, working capital, and capital efficiency, including product and customer profitability analysis in Rise Business Insights.
- Identify root causes of variances and partner with Operations to drive corrective actions.
- Own the plant scorecard’s financial measures—weekly material usage and labor variance and monthly cost per lb—including the narrative and escalation when thresholds are breached.
- Lead annual planning and forecasting, ensuring forecasts are driver-based, actionable, and connected to operational performance, S&OP volumes, the plant labor plan, and the production schedule.
- Support productivity initiatives, staffing and capacity decisions, capital investments, and other significant operational decisions through financial analysis and scenario modeling.
- Track and validate benefits from Rise Recipe, productivity, and capital initiatives, holding the organization accountable for committed results.
- Communicate what happened, why it happened, what is expected next, and what action is required.
- Own the plant’s monthly close by WD5 and accurate, timely financial reporting, including planning, forecasting, balance sheet management, reconciliations, and variance analysis.
- Complete and own the standard P&L package and scorecard provided by the Finance Center of Excellence, adding commentary and actions.
- Maintain manufacturing cost accounting, including standard costs, material usage, labor, yield, waste, overhead, inventory, and other manufacturing variances, with quarterly standard-cost reviews.
- Ensure the integrity of plant financial and operational data using LaunchPAD as the single source, and analyze underlying operational drivers.
- Maintain controls over inventory, including cycle counts and the inventory deviation log; purchasing, including GR/IR monitoring; expenses; capital; production reporting; and other plant financial processes.
- Support internal and external audits and ensure compliance with company accounting policies and control requirements.
- Partner with Regional Finance Operations, the Finance Center of Excellence, and other Plant Controllers to improve processes, tools, analytics, and consistency.
- Support the food safety program, quality standards, and legality of manufactured products.
- Perform other job-related duties as assigned.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
