Plant Director

See's Candies•South San Francisco, CA

2d•Onsite

About The Position

The Plant Manager provides strategic and hands-on leadership for tree regional manufacturing facilities, overseeing all aspects of Production, Packaging, and Maintenance operations. This role ensures the consistent delivery of high-quality products to See's selling divisions, while driving operational excellence and developing a culture of ownership, accountability and empowerment and collaborating with cross-functional stakeholders.

Requirements

Minimum 10 years in progressive leadership roles within food manufacturing; multi-plant leadership experience preferred.
Deep working knowledge of TPM, Lean Manufacturing, and Six Sigma practices with a track record of measurable success.
Demonstrated success managing organizational and operational change, technology adoption, and cultural transformation.
Excellent management and leadership skills; capable of motivating plant employees from all departments at all levels and with diverse cultural backgrounds
Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Food Science, Operations Management, or a related field; equivalent work experience may be considered.

Responsibilities

Lead, direct, and coordinate day-to-day production and packaging operations across both regional manufacturing sites.
Ensure output meets quality standards, production plans, and cost targets.
Develop leadership talent, enables and fosters a culture of ownership, accountability.
Responsible for on sight succession planning.
Manage site leadership teams; establish and develop goals, KPIs, and performance metrics to drive Safety, Quality, Service and Cost.
Lead cultural transformation by promoting a high-performance, inclusive environment.
Embed change management best practices to ensure sustainable adoption of improvements and organizational alignment.
Champion and deploy TPM, Lean, and Six Sigma methodologies to reduce waste, increase OEE, and drive operational efficiency.
Responsible to deliver strategic CI plans and results for sites.
Partner with SME and Plant Manager of San Francisco to standardize CI approach across See’s manufacturing sites.
Ensure strict adherence to workplace safety, food safety (HACCP, GMP, SQF), and environmental regulations.
Collaborate with SME to implement and monitor the workplace safety and food safety programs.
Ensure plant operations are compliant with applicable collective bargaining agreements.
In partnership with Planning, ensure alignment of production schedules with inventory goals, raw material availability, and customer demand.
Collaborate with Logistics on efficient material flow and finished goods distribution.
Serve as primary operational interface for cross-functional partners in Safety, Quality, Supply Chain, Human Resources, Engineering, Finance, R&D and Marketing.
Support new product introductions, seasonal launches, and product transitions through effective change management and cross-departmental coordination.
Collaborate with facility infrastructure team.
Partner with Engineering on equipment and utilities upgrades, installations, and commissioning to meet capacity and innovation needs.
Represent sites in union discussions and negotiations in collaboration with Human Resources.
Manage special projects and strategic initiatives as assigned by senior leadership.
Contribute to enterprise-level strategy and operations benchmarking with other See’s locations.