Factory Manager

Excellence. Pride. Integrity. Compassion. Trust. Are you ready to plant your career in a place where words like these serve as the foundation for doing business every day? At Michigan Sugar, our purpose is Making Life Sweeter, and our mission is Creating Growth and Opportunity.

Michigan Sugar Company has an immediate full-time opportunity for a Factory Manager, located at the Bay City Factory.

Job Summary:

The Factory Manager is responsible for overseeing and managing daily operations of the factory. This role involves coordinating and optimizing production processes, ensuring product quality, managing personnel, and implementing safety and efficiency measures. Daily operations include sugar beet processing, juice and extract campaigns, molasses desugarization and wastewater treatment. Strategic planning for asset management through R&M and capital planning. Manges budget and cost control for factory operations and ensures conformance with the organization's financial controls, policies, and objectives. The Factory Manager plays a crucial role in safety leadership, meeting production targets, maintaining compliance with environmental regulations, and driving continuous improvement initiatives within the facility.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Maintains and assures all OSHA and maintenance safety procedures are followed.
• Manage all processes impacting environmental operations to ensure regulatory compliance.
• Sets business goals, performance standards and expectations through objectives and result tracking.
• Sets specific targets and timelines to achieve production goals, tracking results, providing feedback, and taking corrective actions as appropriate.
• Develop and manage the operations budget for the facility including R&M, capital planning, payroll, operating costs, and losses through forecasting, tracking, and reporting.
• Collaborate with customer service and QA, investigate quality issues, and implement corrective actions.
• Ensure all employees comply with regulatory & company requirements for personal and facility safety.
• Enforce safety and conduct regular safety audits, training employees on best practices.
• Provide site leadership for continuous improvement processes within the operations department.
• Work with direct reports to optimize process and equipment maintenance to minimize downtime.
• Oversee maintenance team, reliability initiatives and R&M to maximize plant efficiency.
• Identify and implement training and development for succession planning to ensure the necessary people skills and resources are applied currently and in the future.
• Set continuous business development plans including identification and submission of capital and extraordinary maintenance projects to improve facility operations.
• Ensure Feed and Food safety program compliance as they relate to USDA and SQF.
• Ensure effective administration of overall performance management, including performance evaluations and provide feedback for employee development.
• Recruit, train, and manage a skilled workforce to ensure optimum plant operations.
• Maintain effective communication with senior management, providing regular updates on production status, challenges, and opportunities.
• Generate reports on key performance indicators and analyze data to drive informed decision-making.
• On-Call for emergencies 24/7 as required.
  
  

Position Qualifications:

• Bachelor of Science Degree in Chemical or Mechanical Engineering or other technical degree highly desired. Advanced certifications are a plus.
• Proven experience in sugar processing with a minimum of 10 years in a managerial role.
• Alternatively, 20+ years of industrial experience with progressive management responsibilities.
• Excellent leadership, communication, and interpersonal skills.
• Ability to analyze data, identify trends, and implement strategic improvements.
• Familiarity with environmental regulatory requirements, quality control and safety standards.
• Strong knowledge of sugar processing technology and understanding of mechanical equipment.
• Ability to clearly communicate strategy and vision to team members.
• Critical thinking skills and the ability to make decisions under pressure.
• Proficient skills in company data management systems and Microsoft Office.
• Ability to work in a matrix reporting environment desired.
• Experience in sugar processing or other food industry preferred.
  
  

Required Training:

• General factory safety requirements (Right to Know)
• Food-related Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP)
• Factory-related environmental regulations
• SQF certification – principles or SQF
• Knowledge of GMP + standards
  
  

Key Competencies:

• Ability to lead and develop cross-functional teams.
• Ability to deliver results working within collective bargaining agreement.
• Demonstrated personal leadership and strong conflict resolution skills.
• Flexible and able to work in fast paced and varying environments.
• Provides model behaviour to demonstrate corporate value.
• Leading by demonstrating ethics and integrity, displaying drive and purpose, demonstrated capability to learn, managing self, increasing self-awareness.
  
  

NOTE: The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by staff assigned to this position. The above statements are not to be construed as an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties and skills that may be required. All staff may be required to perform duties outside their normal responsibilities as needed.

Michigan Sugar Company offers competitive salary, opportunity for professional growth, and provides excellent medical insurance 100% company paid. A comprehensive benefits package includes: dental and life insurances, 401k match, paid holidays, vacation, sick leave and more. To learn more visit www.michigansugar.com .

Michigan Sugar Company was founded in 1906 when six smaller sugar companies merged their operations. In 2002, Michigan Sugar Company became a grower-owned cooperative and in 2004, it merged with Monitor Sugar Company to form the company that exists today.

Michigan Sugar Company is headquartered in Bay City and has sugar beet processing facilities in Bay City, Caro, Croswell and Sebewaing, Michigan. Its nearly 900 grower-owners plant and harvest up to 160,000 acres of sugar beets each year in 20 Michigan counties, as well as Ontario, Canada. Those beets are sliced at the factories and turned into about 1.3 billion pounds of sugar annually.

That sugar is sold to industrial, commercial and retail customers under the Pioneer and Big Chief brands.

Michigan Sugar Company has 930 year-round employees and an additional 1,100 seasonal workers. It is the No. 1 employer in Huron County, the No. 2 employer in Bay and Sanilac counties and the No. 3 employer in Tuscola County. The company’s annual payroll is more than $65 million and its annual local economic impact is about $500 million.

Michigan Sugar Company is the third largest of eight sugar beet processing companies in the United States and Michigan is one of 11 states where sugar beets are grown in the country.

Michigan Sugar Company is an Equal Opportunity Employer