Job Purpose:
The Chief Operations Officer (COO) is responsible for the leadership, strategic direction, and day-to-day management of the company’s manufacturing, manufacturing engineering, and supply chain operations. This role ensures operational excellence, alignment with business objectives, and achievement of short and long term goals through a high performing team of managers, supervisors, and operational staff. The COO is accountable for driving continuous improvement, improving efficiency, and ensuring increasing levels of customer and employee satisfaction.
Responsibilities:
Operational Leadership
- Provide strategic and tactical leadership for manufacturing, manufacturing engineering, and supply chain operations to achieve company objectives.
- Oversee daily production, manufacturing engineering, quality, logistics, and supply chain activities to ensure safe, reliable, and efficient operations.
- Supervise team members at multiple levels, ensuring clarity of expectations, accountability, and operational discipline.
- Optimize day-to-day workflows, processes, and systems to maximize productivity and minimize operational bottlenecks.
Strategic Planning & Execution
- Partner with the CEO and executive leadership team to develop long-term operational strategies aligned with overall business goals.
- Translate organizational objectives into measurable operational action plans, KPI’s, and ensure successful execution.
- Manage operational budgets and capital planning to support growth initiatives and long-term organizational needs.
Safety, Compliance & Quality
- Ensure compliance with all regulatory, safety, and environmental requirements across manufacturing and supply chain operations.
- Drive a strong safety culture, ensuring that policies, practices, and training are consistently followed.
- Oversee service and product quality standards, ensuring operations consistently meet or exceed customer expectations.
Customer & Employee Satisfaction
- Ensure operational performance supports high levels of customer satisfaction related to quality, service, delivery, and cost.
- Promote a workplace culture that values employee engagement, communication, and organizational alignment.
Leadership & Team Development
- Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing team of managers, supervisors, and operational staff.
- Support workforce development, succession planning, and leadership capability building throughout the organization.
- Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, innovation, and employee engagement.
Continuous Improvement
- Lead continuous improvement efforts using Quick Response Manufacturing, lean, Six Sigma, or other operational excellence methodologies.
- Identify opportunities to improve processes, reduce waste, lower costs, and enhance throughput.
- Implement strategies to increase operational efficiency and overall organizational effectiveness.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
- Collaborate with leadership across Finance, HR, Sales, and Product Development to support company-wide initiatives and growth strategies.
- Participate in strategic planning sessions, providing data-driven recommendations to support decision-making.
- Help set organizational goals and drive achievement of metrics that support business growth and stability.
Qualifications
The Way We Do Things: We believe that a team of people who are humble, hungry and smart will deliver superior performance over the sum total of talented individuals; therefore, we are committed to achieving our mission through teamwork while honoring our core values.
Humble – Puts the needs of the organization before themselves. Acknowledge each individual’s strengths and responsibilities. Is committed to the organization’s success.
Hungry - Active participation and engagement in department and company-wide initiatives. Demonstrates an eagerness for achieving results, learning, setting a positive example, and adding to the success of the team.
Smart - Understands the impact of their words and actions on other people. Demonstrates good judgment and intuition of group dynamics.
Education & Experience
- Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Operations Management, Business Administration, or a related field required
- 10+ years of progressive operations leadership experience, including substantial responsibility in manufacturing, manufacturing engineering, and supply chain functions.
Knowledge, Skills & Abilities
- Strong leadership presence with the ability to develop, mentor, and inspire high-performance teams.
- Proven experience implementing operational excellence and continuous improvement methodologies.
- Exceptional analytical, decision-making, and problem-solving skills.
- Excellent communication, organizational, and strategic planning abilities.
- Ability to balance long-term strategic vision with hands-on operational management.
- Commitment to safety, quality, customer satisfaction, and employee engagement.
Physical Demands and Work Environment: The physical requirements described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
- While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to talk and hear. The employee is occasionally required to stand, bend, kneel, climb stairs and walk; use hands to finger, handle, or feel; and reach with hands and arms. The employee must frequently lift and/or move up to 20 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, peripheral vision, depth perception, and the ability to adjust focus.
- The work environment is usually a well-lighted, heated, and/or air-conditioned indoor setting with adequate ventilation. Occasional exposure to outside elements. The noise level in the work environment is occasionally high. This position requires occasional travel, which may involve exposure to extreme weather elements.