Senior Manager - Production Maintenance & Quality

Role Overview

The Senior Manager - Production, Maintenance & Quality leads comprehensive factory operations encompassing production planning, quality control, machine upkeep, workforce management, and continuous improvement efforts. The primary goal is to guarantee manufacturing that is safe, efficient, cost-effective, and consistently meets targets for output, quality, and delivery timelines.

Key Responsibilities

• Oversee daily manufacturing operations to meet production targets while ensuring adherence to quality, safety, and delivery standards.
• Manage production planning, workflow of work-in-progress, machine usage, capacity allocation, and schedule adherence aligned with customer requirements and material availability.
• Improve production efficiency via optimal resource use and process enhancements.
• Coordinate closely with Procurement, Stores, Supply Chain, and Planning departments to secure timely raw material and component availability, preventing disruptions through proactive planning and inventory control.
• Ensure seamless collaboration among production, maintenance, quality, and logistics teams.
• Implement and maintain Quality at Source practices by enforcing SOPs, conducting in-process checks, and maintaining stringent process controls.
• Lead root cause analysis and deploy corrective and preventive actions (CAPA) for quality and production challenges.
• Manage preventive, predictive, and breakdown maintenance schedules to maximize equipment uptime and Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE).
• Comply with quality benchmarks, safety norms, and manufacturing best practices.
• Drive lean manufacturing initiatives including 5S, Kaizen, Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), and continuous improvement projects.
• Lead efforts in automation, productivity growth, cost efficiencies, waste minimization, and process standardization.
• Monitor and analyze key performance indicators (KPIs) such as productivity, quality levels, downtime, rejection rates, OEE, and operational efficiency.
• Plan and oversee manpower allocation, shift schedules, workforce utilization, and performance evaluations.
• Develop a high-performing team by mentoring, coaching, and facilitating skills enhancement.
• Promote a culture emphasizing accountability, safety, quality, and ongoing improvement.
• Manage production specific to educational kit manufacturing with multiple components and high SKU counts.
• Oversee Bill of Materials (BOM) control, kit assembly, production scheduling, quality assurance, and dispatch preparedness.
• Optimize assembly workflows to enhance productivity, precision, and on-time delivery.
• Utilize SAP S/4HANA for production planning, inventory oversight, maintenance tracking, and data reporting.
• Prepare management information system (MIS) reports and dashboards using advanced Excel tools.
• Ensure adherence to statutory regulations, Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) standards, quality systems, and corporate policies.

Required Qualifications and Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering (B.Tech/B.E.) in any specialization.
• Strong expertise in production management, maintenance, quality assurance, and factory operations.
• Proficient in Lean Manufacturing methodologies including 5S, Kaizen, TPM, OEE, and CAPA processes.
• Experienced with production planning, capacity optimization, inventory management, and monitoring manufacturing KPIs.
• Hands-on experience using SAP S/4HANA and Advanced Excel.
• Excellent analytical, problem-solving, decision-making, and organizational capabilities.
• Strong leadership, communication, stakeholder coordination, and cross-functional team management skills.
• Experience in educational kit manufacturing or assembly manufacturing with numerous SKUs is highly preferred.