Plant Manager

Plant Manager Aerofoam USA, LLC | Abbeville, South Carolina Reports to: President and General Manager Lead the operation. Build the team. Shape the future. Aerofoam USA is seeking an experienced, hands-on Plant Manager to lead our NBR rubber manufacturing operations in Abbeville, South Carolina. This is a high-impact leadership role for a manufacturing professional who can translate strategy into daily execution, develop capable leaders, and build a culture of safety, accountability, quality, and continuous improvement. Reporting to the President and General Manager, the Plant Manager will have broad responsibility for plant performance across production, people, safety, quality, maintenance, delivery, and cost. The successful candidate will be a visible presence on the floor, working closely with supervisors and employees while partnering with leadership and support functions to strengthen the operation. This is an opportunity to make a measurable difference in a growing manufacturing environment, establish scalable systems, and help develop the next generation of plant leaders. Leadership Scope Lead daily operations across production, staffing, safety, quality, maintenance, delivery, and cost performance. Set priorities for supervisors and operating teams, establish clear accountability, and ensure consistent execution across all shifts. Develop supervisors and high-potential employees through coaching, feedback, training, cross-training, and structured performance expectations. Build a collaborative, high-performance culture grounded in trust, communication, ownership, and follow-through. Partner with Quality, Maintenance, Engineering, Supply Chain, and leadership to resolve constraints and improve plant-wide performance. Translate business objectives into practical operating plans, measurable goals, and timely action. Serve as a visible and credible leader who earns the confidence and trust of employees at every level. What You’ll Do Lead manufacturing operations to meet customer, safety, quality, production, delivery, and cost objectives. Maintain an active presence on the floor and engage employees in identifying problems and improving processes. Oversee material preparation, mixing, kneading, milling, extrusion, and curing or foaming processes, as applicable. Establish production plans, staffing priorities, standard work, visual management, and effective shift handoffs. Strengthen safety performance through proactive hazard identification, employee engagement, training, and timely corrective action. Partner with Quality to prevent defects, improve process capability, identify root causes, and reduce scrap and rework. Oversee maintenance to ensure equipment reliability, preventive maintenance, and corrective maintenance to reduce downtime and improve overall equipment effectiveness. Use production, quality, maintenance, and cost data to identify constraints, prioritize resources, and track corrective actions. Lead Lean initiatives, structured problem-solving, waste reduction, and operating cost improvement. Improve workforce flexibility through cross-training, skills development, and succession planning. Communicate plant results, risks, resource needs, and improvement plans to leadership with clear owners, milestones, and deadlines. How Success Will Be Measured Success in this role will be reflected in the plant’s ability to consistently improve and sustain: Safety performance and employee participation in safe work practices. Production attainment, schedule adherence, throughput, and on-time delivery. First-pass quality, scrap, rework, customer satisfaction, and corrective-action effectiveness. Equipment uptime, preventive-maintenance completion, downtime reduction, and OEE. Labor productivity, operating cost control, and material utilization. Employee engagement, retention, cross-training, and supervisor capability. Execution of continuous-improvement projects with documented, lasting results. Growth Oppor…

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