Plant Director (Loveland)
Position Title: Plant Director Company Overview: At Bobo’s Oat Bars everything we create is made with love and baked by hand using wholesome, simple ingredients you can find in your own kitchen. Working at Bobo’s is a labor of love. Our experienced staff exudes integrity, grit, passion, and a unified desire to share the love of Bobo’s and our products from their hearts to others. Bobo’s employees embrace and reflect the Bobo’s values being collaborative, adaptable, passionate, persevering, and fun-loving. Compensation and Benefits: · Salary range is $130,000-$150,000 annually · Benefits include bonus potential, health, dental and vision insurance, 401k with 4% company match, equity shares, sick and vacation leave Position Summary: The Plant Director is the senior manufacturing leader responsible for directing day-to-day production across all shifts and production lines. The role is accountable for manufacturing performance, including people leadership, labor productivity, throughput, schedule attainment, OEE, downtime, changeovers, yield, waste, and standard work. The Plant Director maintains a strong floor presence, develops manufacturing leaders, removes barriers to production, and ensures operating standards are followed. This role reports to the VP of Operations and works closely with the Directors of QA, Logistics, and Procurement, who provide ownership of their respective functions. Primary Duties and Responsibilities: • Direct all manufacturing activity across scheduled shifts, production lines, and operating teams. • Lead Production Managers and shift leadership; establish clear expectations, accountability, communication, and follow-through across all shifts. • Own daily execution of the production schedule, including staffing, startup readiness, and running to plan. • Maintain a visible floor presence and understand current line conditions, constraints, risks, and priorities. • Own manufacturing performance for labor, output, throughput, schedule attainment, yield, waste, downtime, changeovers, and OEE. • Drive labor productivity through effective staffing, headcount control, line balancing, break management, shift transitions, and labor standards. • Ensure disciplined daily management routines, including startup meetings, floor walks, shift handoffs, escalation, and end-of-shift review. • Direct the manufacturing response to downtime and production interruptions; partner with Maintenance to restore equipment quickly and eliminate repeat losses. • Own changeover performance, startup efficiency, line readiness, standard work, and consistent operating practices across shifts. • Ensure manufacturing teams follow GMPs, food safety, quality, sanitation, and employee safety requirements established by the responsible functional leaders. • Partner with the QA Director and Quality team on in-process checks, specifications, traceability, holds, corrective actions, and audit requirements; QA retains ownership of quality and food safety systems. • Partner with the Logistics Director on finished goods flow, warehouse handoffs, staging, and production priorities; Logistics retains ownership of warehousing, shipping, transportation, and customer service execution. • Partner with the Procurement Director on material and packaging requirements, shortages, and production risks; Procurement retains ownership of sourcing, purchasing, supplier management, and material availability strategy. • Review manufacturing performance, lead root-cause problem solving, assign corrective actions within Manufacturing, and verify actions are sustained. • Develop Production Managers, Supervisors, Leads, and front-line employees while building accountability and bench strength. • Support plant audits, customer visits, and regulatory inspections by keeping manufacturing areas, practices, and production records ready. • Lead continuous improvement within Manufacturing to increase capacity, improve flow, reduce waste, simplify work, and improve production performance. Additional Duties Performed as Needed: • Support facility projects, capital installations, equipment trials, plant layout improvements, and approved third-party work that affect manufacturing execution. • Participate in cross-functional planning when decisions materially affect plant staffing, capacity, production capability, or manufacturing execution. • Provide manufacturing input to QA, Logistics, Procurement, Maintenance, Scheduling, and other functional leaders without assuming ownership of those departments. Supervisory Responsibility: • Directly leads Production Managers and other assigned manufacturing leaders, with overall leadership responsibility for production floor associates across all shifts. • Does not directly own the QA, Logistics, or Procurement functions; each functional Director retains full responsibility for their team, systems, standards, and departmental results. • Must be accessible to manufacturing leadership when production is operating and respond appropriately to significant staffing, equipment, safety, quality, or production issues. Qualification Summary: • Strong manufacturing leadership with the ability to set expectations, hold teams accountable, and develop front-line leaders. • Demonstrated ability to run a high-volume production operation using daily metrics, floor observation, and disciplined follow-through. • Strong understanding of labor management, production flow, capacity, downtime, OEE, waste, yield, schedule attainment, changeovers, and continuous improvement. • Hands-on problem solver comfortable spending significant time on the production floor and making timely operating decisions. • Strong cross-functional partnership skills with QA, Logistics, Procurement, Maintenance, Scheduling, Human Resources, and other functional leaders while maintaining clear ownership boundaries. • Working knowledge of food manufacturing, baking equipment, GMPs, HACCP, sanitation, traceability, and regulated production environments. Education/Experience Desired: • High School diploma or equivalent required; additional technical, operations, or business education preferred. • Minimum 7-10 years of progressive manufacturing leadership experience, including responsibility for multiple shifts or a large production team. • Food, bakery, CPG, or other high-volume regulated manufacturing experience strongly preferred. • Demonstrated experience improving labor productivity, throughput, downtime, OEE, waste, changeovers, and schedule performance. • Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, TPM, or structured continuous improvement experience preferred. • HACCP and PCQI certification or working knowledge preferred. Key Performance Measures: • Schedule attainment and units produced. • Labor cost, labor productivity, and staffing performance. • OEE, downtime, throughput, and equipment utilization. • Changeover performance and startup execution. • Yield, waste, and manufacturing losses. • Completion and sustainment of manufacturing corrective actions. • Manufacturing compliance with safety, quality, food safety, GMP, and sanitation requirements established by the responsible functional leaders. Supervision Given: • This position reports directly to the VP of Operations. • The Plant Director owns day-to-day Manufacturing execution while partnering closely with the Directors of QA, Logistics, and Procurement, who remain fully accountable for their respective disciplines. • The Plant Director is expected to make sound day-to-day manufacturing decisions and escalate material business, safety, quality, people, or supply risks to the VP of Operations and appropriate functional leader. Physical Demands: The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. General manufacturing working conditions exist. Exposures include, but are not limited to temperature changes, noise, dust, and moving equipment and machinery. Must be able to tolerate exposure to peanuts and tree nuts (coconut, almond, and pecan) as well as other allergen materials. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is frequently required to sit, stand, use hands to grasp and handle objects; reach with hands and arms; and talk and hear. The employee is occasionally required to walk; climb or balance; and stoop, kneel, crouch or crawl. The employee will be expected to stand on their feet for long periods of time and must be able to work in congested areas. The employee must frequently lift and/or move up to 10 pounds and occasionally lift and/or move up to 50 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include looking at a computer screen and ability to adjust focus. The employee must be able to drive a motor vehicle, and effectively communicate using telephone, email, and two-way radio. Travel Required: Limited Work Location: This position will work on-site at our facility in Loveland, CO. Resume Submission: All candidates with relevant expe
