Plant Manager - Fort Wayne in Fort Wayne, Indiana at REA MAGNET WIRE CORP

Responsible for the overall leadership, performance, and continuous improvement of a specialized magnet wire manufacturing plant. Directs all plant operations to achieve excellence in safety, quality, delivery, cost, and employee engagement. Leads cross-functional teams across production, maintenance, engineering, quality, supply chain, and human resources to ensure reliable operations, compliance with regulatory requirements, and achievement of business objectives. The ideal candidate brings strong manufacturing leadership experience, a disciplined approach to problem-solving, and a proven ability to build a high-performance culture in a fast-paced industrial environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead all plant operations with full accountability for safety, environmental compliance, quality, productivity, delivery performance, and cost management.

• Drive a strong safety culture by ensuring compliance with OSHA, environmental regulations, company policies, and safe work practices; lead incident prevention, investigation, and corrective actions.

• Oversee the production of magnet wire products, including coordination of drawing, annealing, insulating, enameling, winding, packaging, and related support processes, as applicable to the facility.

• Ensure production schedules are achieved while maintaining customer specifications, quality standards, and on-time delivery requirements.

• Direct plant leadership across production, maintenance, engineering, quality, warehousing, and support functions to achieve operational goals.

• Develop and execute plant operating plans, budgets, capital plans, and continuous improvement initiatives aligned with company strategy.

• Monitor and improve key performance indicators such as safety performance, scrap, yield, throughput, downtime, labor efficiency, customer complaints, and overall equipment effectiveness.

• Lead efforts to reduce waste, improve process capability, optimize equipment utilization, and control manufacturing costs.

• Partner with engineering and quality teams to maintain process discipline and product consistency for magnet wire applications requiring precise electrical, dimensional, and coating performance.

• Ensure preventive and predictive maintenance systems are effective and that critical equipment reliability is sustained.

• Support new product introductions, process changes, and capital projects to improve capacity, quality, and operational performance.

• Build a culture of accountability, teamwork, communication, and employee involvement through visible leadership and regular plant presence.

• Hire, coach, develop, and evaluate plant leadership and workforce talent to strengthen bench depth and succession planning.

• Collaborate with supply chain, customer service, finance, human resources, and corporate leadership to align plant performance with business needs.

• Lead root cause analysis and corrective action efforts for operational issues, quality concerns, and customer escalations.

• Ensure compliance with company systems, audits, documentation requirements, and applicable customer or industry standards.

• Prepare and present plant performance updates, forecasts, and improvement plans to senior leadership.

• Promote housekeeping, 5S, and disciplined operating standards across the facility.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Operations Management, Business, or a related field.

• Minimum 7–10 years of progressive manufacturing leadership experience, including experience leading teams in a plant or large production environment.

• Magnet wire and/or copper forming into shaped wire (rectangular and squares) manufacturing experience preferred.

• Demonstrated success managing safety, quality, production, maintenance, and cost performance in a manufacturing setting.

• Strong knowledge of lean manufacturing, continuous improvement, and structured problem-solving methods.

• Experience with budgeting, financial performance management, and capital planning.

• Strong leadership, communication, coaching, and team development skills.

• Ability to analyze data, identify trends, and make sound operational decisions.

• Working knowledge of quality systems, process control, and manufacturing compliance requirements.

• Proficiency with ERP/MRP systems and standard business software.