| Detail | For this role |
|---|---|
| Department | Production |
| Level | Senior management |
| Reports to | Head of Manufacturing |
| Direct reports | General Manager Production, Maintenance Manager, Quality Manager, Plant HR Manager, EHS Manager, Materials Manager |
| Experience | 15 to 20 years in manufacturing, with 5+ years leading production or operations for a full plant |
Plant Head job description template
Copy this job description, replace the text in square brackets and post it on your careers page or a job portal.
Job title: Plant Head
Department: Production
Reports to: Head of Manufacturing
Location: [City], [office, branch or site]
About the role
A Plant Head is the senior leader of one manufacturing plant, usually in a company with several plants. They own the plant's safety, output, quality, cost and compliance, lead the heads of production, maintenance, quality, materials, EHS and plant HR, and represent the plant to the corporate office, customers, authorities and the local community. A good plant head delivers the annual plant budget while building a management team that can run the plant without them.
Key responsibilities
- Own the plant's annual budget for output, conversion cost, manpower and capex, and review variances with department heads every month.
- Chair the daily plant meeting on safety, output, quality, delivery and critical breakdowns, and remove blockers between departments.
- Lead the plant's safety culture through incident investigations, safety committee meetings and audits of high-risk jobs.
- Approve production plans, maintenance shutdowns and quality holds that affect customer commitments.
- Keep statutory and environmental compliance in order with the EHS and plant HR teams, including consents, licences and inspection readiness.
- Manage industrial relations and wage settlements with the plant HR manager, and stay in direct touch with workers through shop floor visits.
- Host customer audits and corporate reviews, and close their findings within the agreed timelines.
- Sponsor improvement programmes on energy, yield, scrap and productivity with savings that finance can verify.
- Build working relationships with local authorities, the surrounding community and key contractors around the plant.
- Develop department heads and plan succession for critical plant positions.
Requirements
- BE or BTech in Mechanical, Electrical, Chemical or Production Engineering
- MBA or PGDBM in operations is an advantage
- Training in industrial safety or environmental management is an advantage
- 15 to 20 years in manufacturing, with 5+ years leading production or operations for a full plant
KRAs and KPIs for a Plant Head
Key result areas for the appraisal form, each with a KPI you can measure every month or quarter.
| Key result area | How to measure it |
|---|---|
| Plant safety | Zero fatalities and a lost time injury rate below the plant's yearly target |
| Budget delivery | Conversion cost within budget and output at 97 percent or more of plan |
| Customer quality | Customer complaints below the yearly target, with every 8D report closed on time |
| Compliance | All licences and consents valid, with no closure notice or prosecution in the year |
| Delivery | Customer on time delivery of 95 percent or more every month |
| People | Attrition of trained operators within the plant target and a named successor for every key position |
Skills and tools
Tools used day to day: SAP (PP, PM and QM modules), Plant MIS dashboards, Energy monitoring system, Excel, Safety incident reporting system.
Reporting line and career path
Next roles: Head of Manufacturing, Vice President Manufacturing, Chief Operating Officer
Interview questions for a Plant Head
- Your plant has had three hand injuries on presses this quarter. What do you change?
- Corporate asks you to cut conversion cost without layoffs. Where do you look first?
- How do you respond when the local community demands jobs at the plant?
- Tell me about a strike, go-slow or IR dispute you managed. What did you learn from it?
- How do you run a daily plant meeting so it solves problems instead of just reporting them?
- A customer audit finds a major non-conformance in a process you thought was stable. What next?
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What is the role of a plant head?
A plant head runs an entire manufacturing plant. They own the plant budget, safety, output, quality, compliance and industrial relations, lead the heads of production, maintenance, quality, materials and HR at the site, and represent the plant to corporate, customers and authorities. They usually report to the head of manufacturing or the COO.
What is the difference between a plant head and a plant manager?
In many companies the titles overlap. Where both exist, the plant head is the senior site leader who owns the plant budget, compliance, community relations and the long-term plan, while the plant manager runs daily operations and coordinates production, maintenance and quality. Smaller companies usually have only one of the two roles.
What skills does a plant head need?
A plant head needs sound manufacturing and safety knowledge, the ability to read a budget and control cost, experience of industrial relations and compliance, and the leadership to make department heads work as one team. Calm judgement during breakdowns, accidents or labour issues is often what separates a good plant head from an average one.