Director, Production Engineering

This individual is a critical member of our manufacturing team who is responsible for leading and championing the Manufacturing/Engineering space for our production operations. They will lead a team that will identify, prioritize, and execute opportunities to improve core manufacturing competencies that drive broad impact for the organization. They will champion manufacturing engineering excellence, performance measurement, engineering methods, problem resolution, and process discipline. We are looking for this individual to bring/develop a level of technical business expertise to the plant engineering teams. Will be working on Strategic projects to hit 2030 Sustainability Goals.  

The ideal person will have a solid working knowledge of applying a variety of engineering concepts, capital execution, process/production optimization, methods, tools, practices, and procedures as well as how it connects to our manufacturing environment and other parts of the business. This individual will be self-driven and motivated while executing with a wide degree of latitude in creative behaviors and influential leadership. This newly added position will report to the Senior Director Strategic Operations and Engineering.

This role can be Virtual/Remote and located anywhere in the United States. However, candidates local to MSP will be hybrid work arrangement at our Arden Hills, MN corporate office each week.

Salary is negotiable based on experience: $178,940.00 – 210,060.00

What You’ll Do:

• Build, lead and develop a top performing manufacturing engineering team instilling a culture of accountability, results and continuous improvement.

• Develop manufacturing engineers - Train, coach, evaluate and reinforce Manufacturing & Engineering principles with partners and Team Members.

• Assist with oversight and execution of capital and process improvements for the optimization of new and existing processes.

• Owns the single source of the truth for opportunities in the manufacturing category around opportunities to optimize, reduce risk, improve process capability, innovate, and maximize performance of the entire system of operation.

• Provide strong leadership to the overall engineering team working together to complete projects, assigning team members roles in which they’re most likely to succeed, and maintaining team productivity.

• Actively involved in oversight of current production performance for the overall Dairy Foods business providing technical solutions to meet Safety, Quality, Delivery, Inventory, and Production targets.

• Actively working with companywide maintenance and reliability teams to improve equipment reliability and prevent major downtime.

• Financial analysis and tracking capital spend to provide justification and confirm that capital projects meet or exceed ROI.

• Strategic planning - Provide recommendations regarding process improvements, automation, design …