AmeriQual Foods - Director of Operations

Duties and Responsibilities

• Lead and manage day-to-day operations in the food manufacturing facility.
• Develop and implement strategies to optimize production efficiency, reduce costs, and improve overall operations.
• Ensure production schedules are met on time, within budget, and in line with quality standards.
• Provide leadership, guidance, and mentorship to the operations team, including department managers and supervisors.
• Foster a positive and collaborative work environment to encourage high performance, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Conduct performance evaluations, provide coaching, and oversee training and development for team members.
• Ensure that all products meet quality and food safety standards, including compliance with FDA, USDA, and other regulatory requirements.
• Monitor production costs, track waste, and work with cross-functional teams to implement cost-saving initiatives.
• Provide operations and strategic support for capital projects
• Utilize available data including OEE, line speed target, and efficiency and process data to continuously improve productivity, uptime and reliability.
• Ensure adherence to all safety protocols and regulatory standards to maintain a safe working environment.

Qualifications/Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, management, or related field strongly preferred
• 10 years in manufacturing management, preferably in process-oriented operations; 5 years in a food production environment preferred
• Excellent communication, collaboration, team building, mentoring, and people management skills
• Ability to create accountability, lead by example, and positively influence others
• Ability to multi-task in a fast-paced environment, make decisions, solve practical problems and deal with a variety of changing situations
• Experience with USDA, GMP’s, SQF, HACCP, OSHA, and other industry related regulations
• Experience with lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, or similar process improvement methodologies is a plus.

Physical Requirements

While performing the duties of this job, employees are regularly required to sit, walk and stand; talk or hear, both in person and by telephone; use hands repetitively to operate standard office equipment; reach with hands and arms; and lift up to 25 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision and the ability to adjust focus. Position will also frequent the production floor, so operating in standard seasonal warehouse and food processing plant temperature conditions will be required. Work is completed in a facility where nuts, fruits and other allergens are present.