Senior Welding Supervisor in LaVergne, Tennessee at Coats

Department	Manufacturing / Production Operations
Direct Reports	Welding Leads, Welders/Fabricators, Robotic Welding Operators
Employment Type	Full-Time, Exempt / Salaried

The Senior Welding Supervisor leads and coordinates all manual and automated welding operations across the facility, ensuring safe, efficient, and quality-compliant production. This role oversees a team of welders, fabricators, and robotic welding operators, and is responsible for balancing hands-on shop-floor leadership with the technical oversight of automated/robotic welding cells. The ideal candidate brings deep welding process knowledge together with practical experience supporting or optimizing robotic and automated welding systems, and is comfortable driving continuous improvement across both traditional and automated processes.Leadership & Supervision

• Supervise, schedule, and coach a team of welders, fabricators, and robotic welding cell operators across manual and automated work centers.
• Set daily/weekly production priorities in line with schedules, capacity, and customer delivery commitments.
• Conduct performance reviews, provide coaching and corrective action, and support hiring, onboarding, and training of welding personnel.
• Act as the primary escalation point for welding-related production issues, quality concerns, and equipment downtime.

Manual Welding Operations

• Oversee manual welding processes including MIG (GMAW), TIG (GTAW), stick (SMAW), and flux-core (FCAW) across a range of materials and thicknesses.
• Ensure welders follow approved Welding Procedure Specifications (WPS) and are qualified to the relevant procedures.
• Monitor weld quality, fit-up, and workmanship against drawings, GD&T callouts, and applicable codes/standards.

Automated / Robotic Welding Operations

• Supervise operation of robotic welding cells, ensuring uptime, throughput, and weld quality targets are met.
• Work with controls/automation engineering and integrators to troubleshoot robotic welding cell faults, fixturing issues, and program deviations.
• Support or perform offline/online robot program edits, weld path and parameter adjustments (wire feed, voltage, travel speed) to optimize cycle time and weld quality.
• Coordinate preventive maintenance and calibration schedules for robotic welding equipment, positioners, and fixtures with maintenance/automation teams.
• Identify opportunities to expand automated welding capacity and support justification, trials, and commissioning of new welding automation projects.

Quality, Safety & Continuous Improvement

• Champion a safety-first culture; ensure compliance with all workplace health & safety regulations, PPE requirements, and welding/fume-extraction standards.
• Partner with Quality to investigate weld defects, non-conformances, and customer returns; drive root-cause analysis and corrective actions.
• Lead or support continuous improvement initiatives (5S, lean, kaizen) to reduce scrap, rework, and cycle time in welding operations.
• Maintain accurate documentation: WPS/PQR records, welder qualification records, production reports, and downtime tracking.
• Own and report on key performance metrics for the department, including OEE, first-pass yield, scrap rate, on-time delivery, and safety KPIs (e.g., recordable incident rate, near-miss reporting).

Required

• 7+ years of progressive welding experience, including significant hands-on work with both manual and robotic/automated welding processes.
• 3+ years in a supervisory or lead role within a manufacturing or fabrication environment.
• Strong working knowledge of MIG, TIG, and/or flux-core welding processes on steel and/or aluminum.
• Practical experience with robotic welding cells (Cloos, OTC, Universal Robots (UR), FANUC, ABB, and/or KUKA).
• Ability to read and interpret engineering drawings, weld symbols, and GD&T.
• Solid understanding of welding-related safety standards and fume/ventilation requirements.
• Strong leadership, communication, and conflict-resolution skills with the ability to manage a diverse shop-floor team.
• High School Diploma or GED required; Associate's degree or technical/trade school certificate in Welding, Manufacturing, or a related field preferred. Equivalent combination of hands-on welding and supervisory experience may be considered in lieu of formal education.

Preferred

• AWS certification (e.g., AWS Certified Welder) and/or AWS CWI/CWE credential, or equivalent.
• Familiarity with industry welding codes and standards (e.g., AWS D1.1 – Structural Steel, AWS D1.2 – Aluminum, AWS D1.6 – Stainless Steel, ASME Section IX, or applicable API standards) is a plus.
• Experience developing or reviewing Welding Procedure Specifications (WPS) and Procedure Qualification Records (PQR).
• Exposure to offline robot programming software and weld cell simulation tools.
• Experience supporting integration or commissioning of new robotic welding cells.
• Familiarity with ERP/MES systems for production tracking and reporting.
• Familiarity with CAD software (Creo, SolidWorks, and/or AutoCAD) for reading and interpreting engineering drawings.
• Lean manufacturing or continuous improvement certification/training.

• Primarily shop-floor based, with regular exposure to welding operations, noise, heat, and fumes; PPE required at all times.
• May require occasional flexibility to support off-shift operations, troubleshooting, or urgent production needs.
• Physical requirements include standing/walking for extended periods, and occasional lifting consistent with a manufacturing environment.

The Coats Company is an equal opportunity employer that evaluates qualified applicants without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, ancestry, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions), age, marital status, disability, veteran status, citizenship status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, and other characteristics protected by law.