Plant Manager II

Business Unit Overview

For 75 years, Bob Evans Farms has delivered delicious, quick-to-table, farm-inspired food that makes mealtime a little bit easier and a lot more delicious. We're proud to be the #1-selling refrigerated dinner sides, including many varieties of feel-good favorites such as mashed potatoes and macaroni & cheese. We're also a leading producer and distributor of sausage and bacon products, potato products, and egg products including liquid eggs. Our brand portfolio includes Bob Evans, Simply Potatoes, Egg Beaters and Owens Sausage. Bob Evans Farms is based in Columbus, Ohio.

In September of 2017, Bob Evans Farms was acquired by Post Holdings, Inc. and is part of the Refrigerated Retail division. Other divisions of Post include Post Consumer Brands (Cereal), Weetabix (Cereal - UK), Michael Foods (Foodservice), and 8th Avenue Food & Provisions (Private Label). Post has aggressive growth plans for BEF, highlighted by the recent deployment of capital to support innovation, marketing and manufacturing.

Responsibilities

Bob Evans seeks a dynamic, inspirational operations leader to help transform its Lima, Ohio manufacturing facility. This plant (175,000 square feet) is considered a flagship facility in the combined Bob Evans Farms network (one of five facilities). This plant operates 24 / 7 utilizing four teams working twelve-hour shifts and has five production lines producing mashed potato, macaroni & cheese and pasta & protein side dishes for the retail grocery and food service channels.

The Plant Manager is accountable for developing, communicating and deploying effective plant manufacturing and distribution strategies, processes, and leadership that will enable a step-change improvement in manufacturing efficiencies, and enable the achievement of service level, safety, quality, production and financial goals. Specific responsibilities include :

• Ensure a safe work environment and cultivate safe behavior;
• Lead a performance-driven, values-based culture committed to quality and focused on the customer;
• Responsible for Food Safety and Food Quality of products;
• Fully understand business financials and manage manufacturing financial leverage points;
• Plan and supervise the design and progress of capital projects;
• Maintain a strong focus on the customer, and understand the importance and implications of maintaining world class service levels in support of Company strategy (e.g. speed, agility, flexibility);
• Drive change initiatives and deploy effective change management processes to achieve step-function improvements in plant performance;
• Oversee the development of Plant operating budgets, and review and authorize plant expenditures to meet budget requirements;
• Monitor internal performance reports and processes to ensure effective operations, driving the achievement of KPI targets;
• Evaluate, staff and develop a winning team;
• Maintain procedures for accurate inventory of finished goods and raw materials, leading initiatives to drive working capital productivity;
• Promote positive employee relations and take steps to ensure employment policies are understood and applied consistently and fairly;
• Establish and maintain positive relations with adjacent community;
• Adhere to safe work practices, follow GMP's, maintain sanitary conditions and ensure that product quality is maintained. Report to management any conditions or practices that may adversely affect food safety, food quality or personnel safety
• Follow all SQF principles pertinent to your position as specified by the SQF Practitioner
• Serve as a backup for Operation Managers

Qualifications

Bachelor's degree or equivalent combination of education, training and / or experience is required.

The successful candidate will possess 10 years of successful manufacturing experience with preferably five years of experience in a Plant Manager role. He / she has led a manufacturing facility employing at least 150 to 200 associates. Candidates must have broad skills in manufacturing operations, including the full spectrum of direct manufacturing and supporting areas, including :

Candidates must have solid overall business acumen, with the ability to understand a plant's cost structure, as well as the impact on the business's P&L. He / she is well versed in modern Lean / CI tools and has strong process skills. The successful candidate will also have a strong customer orientation and is viewed as credible by a demanding customer base.

The successful candidate has trained in a large, sophisticated food and / or consumer products manufacturing company. Ideally, the candidate has demonstrated the ability to drive meaningful change and operational improvement, ideally having led a previous "turn around" assignment (such as running an acquired or under-performing facility).