Operations Manager

Located in Sun Valley, CA

Salary: $100k to $135k a year DOE

Operations Manager

Sun Valley, CA

Full time - Temp to hire

Monday through Friday - 8am to 5pm

$100k to $135k a year depending on experience

Busy manufacturing company, specializing in plating for the aerospace and aircraft overhaul industries, is looking for an operations manager to join their team in Sun Valley.

Summary: Seeking an experienced, hands-on Operations Manager who can immediately assume leadership of a high-mix aerospace special-processing operation. This is not a developmental role. The successful candidate must be able to quickly establish control of planning execution, shop-floor priorities, capacity, WIP, labor, schedule adherence, quality performance and customer commitments while developing front-line supervisors and driving a disciplined culture of operational excellence.

Responsibilities:

• Own daily execution of the production plan across hard chrome, cadmium, electroless nickel, chemical processing, NDT, masking, blasting, baking, inspection and supporting operations.
• Translate backlog and customer due dates into executable weekly and daily schedules based on routing, demonstrated capacity, labor, tank/equipment availability and constraints.
• Lead daily operating cadence, production alignment meetings, recovery actions and supervisor flow-down of clear targets to technicians.
• Identify orders at risk before they become past due; establish realistic recovery plans and coordinate proactive customer communication with Planning, Customer Service and Sales.
• Develop practical capacity models by work center, process, tank, oven, NDT resource and skilled labor; identify bottlenecks and improve throughput without sacrificing quality.
• Control WIP, queue time, expedites and priority changes; reduce lead time and improve schedule adherence and on-time delivery.
• Drive first-pass yield, productivity, labor efficiency, overtime control, rework reduction and cost performance in partnership with Quality and Finance.
• Develop supervisors through standard work, accountability, coaching, KPI ownership and structured problem solving.
• Partner with Quality to ensure strict compliance with current specifications, approved routings, technique sheets, Nadcap requirements and aerospace customer requirements.
• Implement Lean manufacturing disciplines including visual management, 5S, standard work, constraint management, root-cause problem solving and continuous improvement.
• Use ERP/MRP, Excel and dashboard/BI tools to manage backlog, capacity, schedule performance, labor and operating KPIs.
• Support quoting and SIOP-style decision making by providing realistic capacity, lead-time and resource input before customer commitments are made.
• Maintain a safe, compliant workplace and ensure supervisors enforce safety, environmental and operating requirements.

Qualifications:

• Minimum 5 years of progressive manufacturing operations experience, including at least 3 years leading production teams in an aerospace environment.
• Demonstrated experience in aerospace special processing, metal finishing, plating, heat treatment, NDT, precision machining, or a closely related regulated manufacturing environment.
• Proven record of improving on-time delivery, schedule adherence, throughput, lead time, first-pass yield, labor efficiency or other measurable operating results.
• Strong working knowledge of production planning, scheduling, finite capacity, bottleneck/constraint management, WIP control and recovery planning.
• Experience operating under AS9100 and/or Nadcap-controlled requirements; able to work effectively with Quality in a specification-driven environment.
• Strong ERP/MRP and Excel capability; comfortable using data and dashboards to run daily operations.
• Ability to lead from the shop floor, make timely decisions, hold teams accountable and communicate effectively with customers and senior leadership.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Direct leadership experience in an aerospace plating or chemical-processing facility.
• Lean Six Sigma, Lean Daily Management or continuous-improvement certification/experience.
• Experience with Power BI or comparable business-intelligence tools.
• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, Operations, Business or related field; equivalent extensive industry experience will be considered.

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