Location: Marlborough, MA

Position Summary:

The Director of Operations, NA is responsible for providing strategic and operational leadership across the company's manufacturing operations supporting Aerospace, Medical, Industrial, and Consumer markets.

This position has direct leadership responsibility for NA Plant Managers and overall accountability for the performance of the manufacturing organization, including safety, quality, delivery, productivity, cost, capacity, inventory, and employee engagement.

The Director will establish a consistent operating culture and performance management system across the plants while recognizing the unique customer, regulatory, quality, and operational requirements of each market.

Working closely with Plant Managers and cross-functional leaders, the Director will drive operational excellence, strengthen manufacturing capabilities, optimize capacity and resources, and ensure the organization consistently meets customer and business requirements.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Multi-Site Operations Leadership
• Provide strategic leadership and direction to Plant Managers across Aerospace, Medical, Industrial, and Consumer manufacturing operations.
• Establish clear operational expectations, objectives, and accountability for each manufacturing facility.
• Ensure plants execute business strategies and achieve operational and financial commitments.
• Establish a consistent operating rhythm across all facilities while allowing flexibility for market- and product-specific requirements.
• Regularly review plant performance, identify risks and opportunities, and establish corrective actions.
• Develop and maintain a strong culture of accountability, ownership, continuous improvement, and operational discipline.
• Ensure appropriate organizational structures, staffing levels, and leadership capabilities across the plants.

2. Plant Performance & Accountability
• Establish and manage common operational KPIs, including:

o Safety

o Quality

o On-time delivery

o Productivity

o Labor efficiency

o Manufacturing cost

o Scrap and yield

o Capacity utilization

o Inventory

o OEE

o Employee engagement
• Establish regular performance reviews with Plant Managers and leadership teams.
• Identify underperformance and ensure timely corrective and preventive actions.
• Drive consistency in operating practices, management systems, and accountability across facilities.
• Ensure plants have clear annual operating plans and measurable improvement objectives.

3. Financial & Cost Management
• Partner with Finance to develop annual operating budgets and forecasts.
• Drive labor productivity, material efficiency, overhead management, and manufacturing cost improvements.
• Identify and execute cost-reduction opportunities without compromising safety, quality, compliance, or customer requirements.
• Review plant financial performance and ensure corrective actions are implemented when performance deviates from plan.
• Ensure capital investments are aligned with business strategy and deliver expected financial and operational returns.

4. Customer & Delivery Performance
• Ensure manufacturing operations consistently meet customer delivery requirements.
• Establish clear accountability for schedule adherence and on-time delivery.
• Partner with Supply Chain and Commercial teams to resolve customer delivery risks.
• Ensure plants have effective production planning, scheduling, and execution processes.
• Proactively identify potential customer-impacting issues and establish recovery plans.
• Support strategic customer relationships where operational performance is a key component of the relationship.

5. Quality & Regulatory Performance
• Partner with Quality leadership to ensure manufacturing operations consistently meet customer and regulatory requirements.
• Establish a culture in which quality is built into the manufacturing process rather than inspected into the product.
• Ensure plant leadership maintains appropriate focus on quality performance and corrective actions.
• Support compliance with applicable Aerospace, Medical, Industrial, Consumer, and other industry-specific requirements.
• Ensure effective response to significant customer complaints, quality issues, and audit findings.
• Drive accountability for sustainable corrective and preventive actions.

6. Safety & Environmental Responsibility
• Establish safety as a core operating priority across all manufacturing facilities.
• Support Plant Managers in meeting safety performance and compliance requirements.
• Ensure appropriate safety systems, training, risk assessments, and corrective actions are in place.
• Promote a proactive safety culture focused on prevention and employee engagement.
• Ensure compliance with applicable environmental, health, and safety requirements.

7. Talent & Organizational Development
• Lead, coach, and develop Plant Managers to strengthen overall manufacturing leadership capability.
• Establish clear performance expectations and development plans for Plant Managers.
• Build a strong pipeline of manufacturing leadership talent.
• Identify organizational capability gaps and develop appropriate training and development programs.
• Promote succession planning for key operational leadership positions.
• Establish a culture of collaboration and knowledge sharing across plants.
• Develop strong leaders who can independently manage plant operations while remaining aligned with overall company strategy.

Cross-Functional Leadership
• Establish strong partnerships with:

o Supply Chain

o Quality

o Engineering

o Finance

o Commercial/Sales

o Human Resources

o IT

o Product Development
• Ensure operational priorities are aligned with overall company objectives.
• Provide manufacturing input into strategic business decisions.
• Balance customer requirements, operational capabilities, financial objectives, and long-term business strategy.
• Serve as the senior operational escalation point for significant manufacturing issues.

Qualifications:
• Bachelor's degree, Manufacturing, Operations, Business, or a related field.
• 10+ years of progressive manufacturing and operations leadership experience.
• 5+ years of experience leading multiple manufacturing facilities and/or Plant Managers.
• Demonstrated experience managing manufacturing performance across multiple sites.
• Strong financial and business acumen with experience managing plant budgets and operating costs.
• Demonstrated success improving safety, quality, delivery, productivity, and cost.
• Strong understanding of manufacturing processes, production planning, supply chain, quality, and engineering.
• Proven ability to lead through Plant Managers and develop strong operational

leadership teams.
• Strong change management, communication, and problem-solving capabilities.

Must be able to work on government contracts

Overall Role Objective:
• The Director of Operations is accountable for building and leading a high-performing, consistent, and scalable manufacturing organization.
• The role is responsible for ensuring that Plant Managers and their teams deliver safe, high-quality, cost-effective products on time, while developing the people, processes, capacity, and capabilities required to support the company's long-term growth.
• The Director will establish a common operating culture across the manufacturing network, drive accountability through Plant Managers, and ensure that operational excellence becomes a sustainable competitive advantage for the business.