Plant Manager - 2020 in Sandusky, Ohio at Decko Products LLC

About Decko Products LLC

Decko Products, LLC is a private label manufacturer based in Sandusky, Ohio, specializing in a variety of edible products for baking and decoration. We offer a wide range of products, including extruded royal icing decorations, butter cream icings, piping gel, and various fillings for cakes and desserts. We also provide special packaging services in the baking industry, ensuring high-quality standards and safety in our products. Decko Products operates an FDA-inspected facility, and our team is dedicated to meeting the demands of the food industry.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or national origin. Equal employment opportunities will be extended in all aspects of the employer-employee relationship, including, but not limited to, recruitment, hiring, training, promotion, transfer, demotion, compensation, benefits, layoff, and termination. In addition, Decko Products LLC will make reasonable accommodation to known physical or mental limitations of an otherwise qualified applicant with a disability, unless the accommodation imposes an undue hardship on the operation of our business.

We are hiring a plant manager to lead our 2200 plant — dry mix blending and filling, ready-to-eat component packaging, kit assembly and tub and bottle pack-out for national retail customers under our own brands, private label and contract manufacturing agreements.

The work here is as much about flow and segregation as it is about machine speed. The plant runs segregated production rooms to keep gluten-free, allergen-containing and organic products apart, a large and growing kit business assembled on the floor, and a seasonal curve that roughly doubles demand between August and October. The leader we want understands that changeover strategy, run order and clean verification are the real capacity levers in a plant like this, and can prove it with Lean and TPM work they have personally led.

The role owns safety, food safety and quality execution, production attainment, yield, cost and people development for the 2200 plant. It is one of two plant leadership roles; the sister role leads the main plant. Both report to the Chief Operating Officer and share site services — engineering, planning, warehouse, and quality and sanitation.

Final line and room assignment is confirmed at hire.

Safety

• Own safety performance for the plant. Lead entanglement, guarding, LOTO and pedestrian/PIT risk reviews line by line, and close findings on a dated plan.

• Treat every near miss as if it were an injury: investigate, root cause, correct, and share the learning across both plants.

• Maintain OSHA recordkeeping, contractor safety rules, powered industrial truck licensing, and the plant garment and PPE policy.

• Make safety the first item in every shift meeting and the first question in every incident review.

Food safety, allergen control and gluten-free integrity

• Deliver product that meets specification the first time — GMPs, HACCP/preventive controls, SQF readiness, sanitation verification, and allergen control on every changeover.

• Respect release authority: Food Safety & Quality releases product and releases equipment after cleaning. Production does not release itself.

• Drive holds to disposition on a clock — no aged holds accumulating on the floor — and own corrective action for the losses that created them.

• Own weight control, fill accuracy and label/lot accuracy to spec, with verification recorded at the line.

• Own room segregation and product flow: correct material to the correct room, no cross-traffic of people or tools between segregated rooms, verified cleans before a gluten-free or organic run, and documented equipment release. Certification exposure for gluten-free and organic product sits with this plant.

• Own combustible dust, housekeeping and dust-control practice in a flour- and sugar-heavy environment.

Production attainment and schedule discipline

• Operate to the published production schedule. Deviations are escalated to Planning and resolved through the plan — the schedule is not changed on the floor to cover a miss.

• Same-day escalation is non-negotiable: a line that goes down, runs short or runs off-standard is reported the day it happens, with the reason, the recovery plan and the ask.

• Confirm line readiness before every start: materials staged and verified, change parts on hand, crew assigned to skill, specs and centerlines at the line, and first-piece checks completed before the run is released.

• Protect first-shift start-up. Start-up losses are treated as a managed process with a setup technician and a technical supervisor accountable for a clean first hour, not as an accepted cost of doing business.

• Sequence the week to earn the cleans: organic first after a verified clean, then allergen-free, then adding allergens in order — never running backwards without the full clean the standard requires.

Lean and TPM

• Run the plant on a Lean/TPM operating system, not on firefighting: daily management by tier, standard work for supervisors and line leads, 5S, visual controls at the line, and a live OEE loss tree by line and by shift.

• Own the loss tree personally — planned losses (changeover, sanitation, PM, autonomous maintenance) separated from unplanned (breakdowns, process upsets, minor stops, material and QA loss, speed loss), in hours, percent and cases.

• Stand up autonomous maintenance and centerlining on the highest-loss assets: operator-owned cleaning, inspection and lubrication, defect tagging, and documented centerline settings by SKU.

• Drive changeover reduction (SMED) against a published changeover standard per transition class; hold the line on run order so allergen and specialty cleans are earned, not repeated.

• Lead structured problem solving on repeat losses — 5-why and A3 to true root cause, with countermeasures verified and standardized rather than closed on opinion.

• Plan the seasonal peak rather than survive it: build-ahead where shelf life allows, crewing plans for kit assembly at peak volume, and a third-shift or added-capacity decision made early enough to matter.

People and organization

• Lead, coach and hold accountable a supervisor team across two production shifts plus kit assembly crews that scale from one crew in the quiet months to several at peak.

• Build supervisor capability through standard work, shift-handover discipline and documented daily routines; stop the pattern of promoting to supervisor before the person is ready and develop line leads as the bench.

• Own a skills matrix by line and position, and match people to lines by demonstrated skill each day — particularly important with a temp-heavy workforce.

• Lead day-one orientation, on-the-job qualification and certification for every operator, temp included, before they are counted as trained on a line.

• Administer the collective bargaining agreement fairly and consistently: attendance and start-time accountability, job bidding and assignment, grievance handling, and a working partnership with union leadership and HR.

• Hold the right people in the right seats — including union roles filled by union employees — and correct assignments that do not follow the agreement.

Capital, budget, OEE and capacity

• Own the CAPEX master plan for the site — a rolling multi-year capital plan by asset, ranked on quantified loss and capacity need, with scope, cost, payback and timing on every line.

• Sponsor capital projects end to end: justification, appropriation request, vendor selection, installation, commissioning, run-rate qualification and post-implementation review against the numbers that justified the spend.

• Own OEE as the operating measure of the plant — availability, performance and quality by line and by shift — with the loss tree underneath it and an improvement target on every major asset.

• Own the plant capacity model: demonstrated rates, crew requirements, changeover times, planned downtime and realistic line availability, kept current so Planning, S&OP and commercial commitments are made against capacity that actually exists.

• Give the capacity answer for new business — what the plant can take, at what rate, at what cost and by when — and stand behind it.

• Bring the capital case for room capacity, segregation and automation where the segregation model or the seasonal peak is the binding constraint, sized on the loss it removes.

Commercialization, validation and training

• Facilitate commercialization for the site: plant trials, scale-up from R&D, first production runs, line trials and qualification of new items, new formats and new equipment.

• Own validation and verification at the plant — process validation, equipment qualification, cleaning and changeover validation, centerline and rate confirmation — before an item or an asset is released to routine production.

• Enforce the readiness gate: no new item goes on the schedule without a specification, a bill of materials, a standard rate, a crew requirement, a changeover plan and a trained crew.

• Ensure training is completed and documented for every person on the floor, permanent and temporary, before they are counted as qualified on a line — with training records current, verified and audit-ready.

• Own the plant side of new item launches in a high-SKU business — trial, qualification, room and run-order assignment, changeover classification and launch scrap control.

Cost and financial ownership

• Run the plant to budget. Own the annual operating budget, review variance monthly against labor, overtime, temp spend, supplies, scrap and maintenance, and bring a recovery plan wherever the plant is off.

• Own the plant cost lines you control: yield and scrap, direct and indirect labor, overtime, temp spend, supplies, and maintenance materials.

• Improve overhead absorption by running to schedule and to rate — the lever that recovers margin is demonstrated throughput, not price.

• Review a weekly cost and performance scorecard with the COO and act on the exceptions.

Systems, data and planning

• Provide clean, timely production every run opened and closed the day it runs, actual good units, actual scrap by reason code, and downtime captured at the line.

• Partner with Planning and Supply Chain so the MRP runs on real rates, real yields and real capacity — the plant owns the standards it is measured against.

• Keep standard rates, crew requirements, changeover times and batch cycle times current by line and by item, and challenge them with demonstrated performance.

• Support the rollout of planning and inventory systems as a user and an owner, not a bystander.

• Own the changeover standard for this plant — the matrix of transition classes and the minutes each one is allowed — and keep it honest as products change.

• Seven or more years in food manufacturing operations, including three or more years as a plant manager, operations manager or production manager with full accountability for a plant or a major department.

• Demonstrated Lean and TPM background — not a certificate, but plants and lines you personally improved. Be ready to walk us through a loss tree you built, the losses you attacked and what the numbers did.

• Hands-on experience with allergen and gluten-free segregation, sanitation verification and changeover control in a high-SKU environment.

• Food plant manufacturing experience is required. Strong working knowledge of GMPs, HACCP or preventive controls, sanitation, allergen control and SQF or equivalent audit standards.

• Working command of OEE, attainment, yield and scrap, standard rates, changeover analysis and capacity planning — you own these numbers, you do not receive them.

• Capital planning experience: building and defending a multi-year CAPEX plan, writing the justification, and delivering projects through commissioning and post-implementation review.

• Experience running a plant to an operating budget with monthly variance accountability.

• Commercialization experience — plant trials, scale-up, validation and qualification of new items and new equipment — and ownership of the training and certification that has to be complete before a line runs.

• Proven record of developing supervisors and front-line leaders, and of managing a variable hourly workforce through a seasonal curve.

• Willing and able to flex hours to the needs of the business, including weekends, off-shifts and extended hours during seasonal peak and recovery periods.

• Bachelor's degree in engineering, food science, operations or a related field, or equivalent experience earned on the floor.

• Dry blending, powder handling or bakery mix experience, including combustible dust practice.

• Experience in a unionized plant, including administering a collective bargaining agreement.

• Certified gluten-free or certified organic production experience, and the audits that come with it.

• Hand-assembly or kitting operations where labor planning and line balance drive the cost.

• Vertical form-fill-seal and stand-up pouch equipment experience.

• Bilingual English/Spanish.

• The plant runs two production shifts with third-shift sanitation, and volume is seasonal with a heavy fall peak. The person in this role flexes their hours to the business — weekends, early starts, late finishes and off-shift presence when the schedule, a start-up or a recovery requires it.

• Expected to be visible across both shifts on a regular cadence, not first shift only.

• Regularly on the production floor: standing and walking for extended periods, climbing stairs and platforms, and occasional lifting to 35 lbs.

• Exposure to food manufacturing conditions — noise, moving equipment, powered industrial trucks, flour and sugar dust, heat at cook and fill stations, and cold storage.

• Full GMP compliance including hairnets, beard nets, hearing protection, safety footwear and the plant garment policy.

• This is an on-site role. Remote or hybrid work is not available.

• Weeks 1–2: on the floor across both shifts. Meet every supervisor and lead, walk every room and line, and form your own read on segregation practice, staffing, equipment condition and where the losses sit.

• Weeks 3–6: publish a loss tree by line and shift; validate the changeover standard against actual times; set the daily management routine and shift-handover standard.

• Weeks 6–10: fix the run order and the two highest-loss changeovers; confirm the kit assembly crewing model against the peak forecast.

• By day 90: an agreed attainment and yield recovery plan, a peak readiness plan with crewing and build-ahead, and a supervisor development plan by name.

Miss Jones Baking Co. and Decko are equal opportunity employers. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status or any other protected characteristic.