Production Manager

Job Role: Production Manager

Salary: £40,000 - £45,000

Location: Carlisle, Cumbria

Type: Full Time / Permanent

Hours: Shift Pattern – 4 nights on & 4 nights off, either fixed days or nights

Overview:

Everest People Solutions are recruiting an experienced Production Manager for a leading food manufacturing business. As Production Manager, you will ensure the consistent application of processes to meet production standards and costings. You will provide management cover for fellow Production Managers and assume responsibilities of Manufacturing Managers as needed. Your role as Production Manager includes driving the health and safety agenda, enforcing standards of quality, food safety, hygiene, and housekeeping, and effectively managing labour and material utilisation. You will lead and coach team leaders to achieve department KPIs and generate SMART actions to drive improvements and resolve issues, ensuring a safe and efficient working environment. We are looking at time served PM’s with food industry experience only for this role, you will also be confident in dealing with teams up to 150 people.

Key Duties & Responsibilities for the Production Manager:

• Deliver department productivity and efficiency targets to produce goods according to the production plan.
• Continuously monitor raw materials, operational processes, and the production environment to ensure compliance with food safety standards.
• Review labour deployment to ensure availability and alignment with department production requirements.
• Communicate progress against the plan with the operations team, highlighting risks to achieving volumes and standards.
• Monitor machinery and equipment effectiveness through Optimum Equipment Efficiency to ensure performance consistency and reliability.
• Promote a SHE (Safety, Health, Environment) culture by adhering to procedures, investigating accidents, implementing corrective actions, and completing near miss reporting.
• Review operational trends to identify and act on opportunities for sustainable improvements in quality, performance, and profit, ensuring delivery of the operational plan.
• Monitor and review team capability, ensuring colleagues are focused on key objectives and developed to maximize potential.
• Contribute to customer and technical process development reviews to improve production quality and consistency. Own resource control and daily labour planning.
• Ensure efficiencies in direct labour control, running all production lines at the agreed speed and staffing levels.
• Manage waste and yield, escalating issues as per procedure.
• Manage materials and Work-In-Progress (WIP) with correct rotation and shelf-life management. Oversee shift labour planning and manage absences.

Requirements for the Production Manager:

• Proven experience leading large manufacturing teams in an FMCG environment.
• Strong analytical skills.
• Ability to plan and drive initiatives within a complex team structure.
• Experience in leading business improvement activities.
• Well-educated with strong literacy and numerical skills; able to understand, communicate, and report clearly in English.
• Experience managing diverse teams in a complex manufacturing environment.
• Advanced Food Hygiene Accreditation.
• HACCP Level 2 Qualification. IOSH Level 2 Certification.
• Effective communication skills at all levels within the organization.
• Skilled in facilitating skill gap evaluations and competence training.
• Proficient in overseeing and implementing effective material and ingredient control processes.
• Capable of effectively managing labour utilization within the production unit.
• Competent in challenging team performance and ensuring adherence to performance management routines (Tear Meetings, SIC reporting, OEE reporting).
• Skilled in addressing and resolving conflict and effectively managing absence and resource issues.
• committed to maintaining high standards of product quality, food safety, and GMP.
• Ability to promote a proactive Health and Safety culture and take appropriate actions to address H&S concerns.