Kentucky Trailer

As a part of the global industrial organization Marmon Holdings—which is backed by Berkshire Hathaway—you’ll be doing things that matter, leading at every level, and winning a better way. We’re committed to making a positive impact on the world, providing you with diverse learning and working opportunities, and fostering a culture where everyone’s empowered to be their best.

The Manufacturing Shop Floor Manager is responsible for the safe, efficient, and consistent execution of daily production activities. This position provides hands-on leadership to shop-floor employees while ensuring production schedules, quality requirements, safety standards, and operational expectations are achieved.
The Supervisor serves as the primary connection between production employees and Operations leadership, taking ownership of daily execution, removing barriers, developing employees, maintaining accountability, and driving continuous improvement throughout the manufacturing operation.

Key Responsibilities

Safety

• Lead by example and maintain a strong safety-first culture.
• Ensure employees follow established safety procedures, PPE requirements, and safe work practices.
• Immediately address unsafe conditions and behaviors.
• Participate in safety observations, incident reviews, and corrective actions.
• Conduct daily floor walks to identify and eliminate potential safety concerns.

Production & Schedule Execution

• Manage daily production activities to meet established schedules and customer commitments.
• Assign employees based on workload, skills, priorities, and production requirements.
• Monitor production progress throughout the shift and respond quickly to schedule disruptions.
• Escalate material, engineering, quality, equipment, or staffing issues that threaten production commitments.
• Coordinate priorities with supporting departments to maintain production flow.
• Ensure employees understand daily priorities, expectations, and completion targets.

Quality

• Ensure work is completed according to released drawings, specifications, work instructions, and approved processes.
• Address quality issues at the point of occurrence rather than allowing defects to move downstream.
• Support root-cause analysis and corrective actions for recurring quality problems.
• Maintain employee accountability for workmanship and quality standards.

People Leadership

• Provide clear direction, expectations, coaching, and feedback to production employees.
• Develop employees through cross-training, mentoring, and skills development.
• Identify and develop future team leads and leadership candidates.
• Address attendance, performance, behavioral, and policy issues consistently.
• Conduct effective shift-start or daily production meetings.
• Promote teamwork and professional communication throughout the shop.
• Recognize strong performance while addressing performance gaps promptly.

Lean & Continuous Improvement

• Champion 5S, workplace organization, standard work, and visual management.
• Identify opportunities to reduce waste, waiting, unnecessary movement, rework, and production delays.
• Encourage employees to identify and implement practical improvements.
• Support Lean initiatives and structured problem solving.
• Maintain established improvements rather than allowing processes to return to previous conditions.

Operational Discipline

• Maintain accurate production reporting and documentation.
• Monitor labor utilization and overtime requirements.
• Ensure employees are working on the correct jobs and priorities.
• Maintain clean, organized, production-ready work areas.
• Reinforce company policies and shop-floor expectations consistently across the workforce.
• Conduct effective shift handoffs when applicable.

Cross-Functional Coordination

Work closely with:

• Production Planning
• Engineering
• Quality
• Materials / Purchasing
• Maintenance
• Shipping and Receiving
• Operations Leadership

Proactively communicate issues affecting safety, quality, delivery, cost, or workforce availability.

Qualifications

Required

• Minimum 5 years manufacturing or industrial production experience.
• Minimum 5 years  experience leading employees, teams, or production activities.
• Strong understanding of shop-floor operations and manufacturing processes.
• Ability to read and understand production drawings, work instructions, and specifications.
• Strong organizational and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to manage changing priorities in a fast-paced manufacturing environment.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability to hold employees accountable while maintaining positive working relationships.
• Basic computer proficiency with manufacturing and business systems.

Preferred

• Lean manufacturing / continuous improvement experience.
• Experience with 5S, standard work, visual management, and root-cause problem solving.
• Experience working within engineered-to-order, fabrication, welding, assembly, or similar manufacturing environments.
• OSHA or manufacturing safety training.
• Previous responsibility for production scheduling, labor planning, or performance metrics.

Leadership Expectations

The successful Manufacturing Shop Floor Manager will demonstrate:

Safety: Never compromise employee safety for production.

Ownership: Take responsibility for the performance of the assigned area.

Accountability: Set expectations and consistently follow through.

Urgency: Recognize production problems early and drive them toward resolution.

Communication: Keep employees and leadership informed before problems become larger issues.

Quality: Reinforce that work must meet requirements before moving downstream.

Continuous Improvement: Challenge inefficient processes and encourage better ways of working.

People Development: Coach employees and build capability within the team.

Professionalism: Treat employees consistently, respectfully, and fairly.

 

Key Performance Measures

Performance will be evaluated using a balanced set of operational metrics, including:

• Improved performance through increased employee engagement and motivation
• Safety performance
• Production schedule attainment
• On-time completion
• First-pass quality
• Rework and nonconformance reduction
• Labor efficiency/productivity
• Overtime control
• Attendance
• Lean/5S performance
• Cross-training progress
• Employee development
• Continuous improvement activity

What Success Looks Like

A successful Manufacturing Shop Floor Manager creates an area where employees know the daily priorities, understand the standard, have the resources needed to perform the work, and are held accountable for safety, quality, delivery, and productivity.

The expectation is not simply to react to problems but to actively manage the operation, identify risks early, coordinate solutions, develop the workforce, and continuously improve how work moves through the shop.

Following receipt of a conditional offer of employment, candidates will be required to complete additional job-related screening processes as permitted or required by applicable law.

We are an equal opportunity employer, and all applicants will be considered for employment without attention to their membership in any protected class. If you require any reasonable accommodation to complete your application or any part of the recruiting process, please email your request to [email protected], and please be sure to include the title and the location of the position for which you are applying.