Director of Manufacturing and Operational Excellence

We are Proud to be SJE!

At SJE , we are more than a company — we are a family of brands with a shared vision and mission to provide industry-leading, innovative, and reliable control and monitoring solutions that improve efficiencies, protect the environment, and deliver dependable solutions to our valued customers. We are looking for a Director of Manufacturing and Operational Excellence to support our SJE Revere brand.

Our Revere brand is a leading provider of automation and control solutions for the industrial, water and wastewater treatment, power and energy, manufacturing, food and beverage, oil and gas, and pulp and paper industries. We design, build, and implement customized automation and control systems for highly complex projects. Check us out at Reverecontrol.com (https://www.reverecontrol.com/) or SJEinc.com (https://sjeinc.com/) !.

The job:

The Director of Manufacturing and Operational Excellence provides leadership for SJE’s manufacturing network and drives the operating improvements required to support growth, quality, delivery, and profitability. This leader will build a more standardized, scalable manufacturing model across SJE ECS sites, with particular focus on panel manufacturing, PanelConnex manufacturing, automation, capacity planning, and continuous improvement.

The role will translate the Operations Strategy into execution: establishing common manufacturing standards, advancing the hub-and-spoke operating model, improving daily management practices, and leading investment decisions that increase capacity and reduce manufacturing complexity.

The skills you need:

What will you do in this role:

Manufacturing Strategy and Network Development

• Lead the development and implementation of the future-state manufacturing network, including hub-and-spoke roles, site capabilities, work-share processes, and capacity planning.
• Define which products, projects, and manufacturing activities should remain local versus move to manufacturing hubs or shared-service capabilities.
• Establish clear operating requirements for manufacturing hubs, spoke sites, and customer FAT locations.
• Lead the Ashland hub pilot and help develop the business case for expanded hub capabilities in Birmingham and a future Florida regional operations center.
• Partner with Operations, Engineering, Project Management, Supply Chain, Quality, and Commercial leaders to align demand, capacity, scheduling, and customer commitments.

Continuous Improvement and Manufacturing Standardization

• Build and lead a practical continuous improvement system across manufacturing locations.
• Standardize work instructions, routings, bills of material, quality requirements, visual management, 5S practices, and problem-solving methods.
• Establish and sustain Managing for Daily Improvement (MDI) routines that connect shop-floor issues to site and enterprise leadership action.
• Lead Kaizen events and improvement projects focused on safety, quality, labor productivity, flow, lead time, rework, and on-time delivery.
• Develop common manufacturing metrics, definitions, targets, and escalation thresholds across all sites.
• Ensure corrective actions address root causes and improve performance across the network, rather than only at an individual location.

PanelConnex and Panel Manufacturing

• Lead the manufacturing strategy and operating model for PanelConnex and other panel manufacturing businesses.
• Improve panel manufacturing consistency, quality, throughput, and labor efficiency across sites.
• Standardize panel design-to-build processes, including engineering handoff, materials, manufacturing instructions, testing, and final acceptance.
• Create a scalable approach for allocating panel work based on project complexity, customer needs, site capacity, and available technical capability.
• Support the growth of PanelConnex manufacturing while maintaining customer responsiveness and product quality.

Manufacturing Automation and Digital Manufacturing

• Develop and execute the manufacturing automation roadmap, including EPLAN, Smart Mounting, Smart Wiring, ModCenter, wire processing, and related production technologies.
• Identify automation opportunities that improve repeatability, reduce cycle time, increase labor flexibility, and expand shared manufacturing capacity.
• Build capital requests and investment cases using defined productivity, quality, capacity, safety, and financial outcomes.
• Partner with Engineering and IT to create a reliable digital thread from design through manufacturing, testing, and reporting.
• Ensure automation investments include standard work, training, maintenance plans, adoption measures, and clear performance expectations.

Capacity, Performance, and Operational Leadership

• Establish a common capacity-planning process that connects bookings, backlog, labor, materials, engineering readiness, and manufacturing schedules.
• Lead improvement plans for manufacturing constraints, including layout, staffing, shifts, equipment, material flow, and facility utilization.
• Monitor and improve core operational performance measures, including safety, first-pass yield, rework, on-time delivery, schedule adherence, manufacturing hours versus estimate, scrap, uptime, and test pass rate.
• Support site leaders in creating focused recovery plans when performance falls below target.
• Help evaluate manufacturing footprint decisions, including facility expansions, consolidations, make-versus-buy opportunities, and outsourced fabrication.

People, Culture, and Change Leadership

• Build the manufacturing and continuous-improvement leadership capability needed to support the operating strategy.
• Coach site leaders, manufacturing managers, engineers, and frontline teams in Lean methods, structured problem solving, standard work, and accountability.
• Promote a culture of safety, respect, employee engagement, ownership, and continuous improvement.
• Support organizational design, succession planning, and hiring for manufacturing, automation, continuous improvement, quality, planning, and transformation roles.
• Communicate priorities and progress clearly across manufacturing sites and leadership forums.

Measures of Success

• Manufacturing standards and daily management practices are consistently deployed across sites.
• PanelConnex and panel manufacturing capacity, quality, and on-time delivery improve.
• Automation investments deliver measurable improvements in throughput, quality, labor efficiency, and cross-site capacity.
• The hub-and-spoke manufacturing model supports reliable work sharing and clearer site roles.
• First-pass yield improves while rework, test escapes, downtime, and material scrap decrease.
• Site capacity and performance visibility improve through common reporting, scheduling, and KPI definitions.
• Manufacturing teams demonstrate stronger problem-solving discipline, ownership, and follow-through.

Education, Experience and Ability Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Operations, Manufacturing, Business, or a related field. Advanced degree preferred.
• 12 or more years of progressive manufacturing or operations leadership experience, including multi-site responsibility.
• Demonstrated success leading manufacturing transformation, Lean implementation, continuous improvement, and standardized operating systems.
• Experience in electrical panel manufacturing, industrial controls, engineered-to-order manufacturing, automation, or a similar technical manufacturing environment strongly preferred.
• Experience implementing manufacturing automation and digital manufacturing tools, including engineering-to-production workflows.
• Strong knowledge of Lean manufacturing, 5S, visual management, value-stream improvement, root-cause analysis, capacity planning, and operational KPI management.
• Experience leading capital investment assessments and delivering measurable productivity, quality, capacity, or cost improvements.
• Ability to lead through influence across Operations, Engineering, Supply Chain, Quality, Finance, HR, and Commercial teams.
• Willingness to travel regularly among SJE manufacturing locations.

Answering your questions:

When you are considering a new job, it is normal to have a ton of questions. Here are a few questions we are asked all the time.

• What is your Flex Time Off and holiday policy? Up six (6) weeks of Flex Time Off plus 8 paid holidays.
• What benefits do you offer? We offer a robust benefits package including health, life, short-term and long-term disability insurance as well as dental and vision programs you need to take care of your family, along with other benefit options . Check out our full benefits package (http://www.sjeinc.com/benefits/) !
• What percentage of travel is required for this position? 30% - 50%

We will answer more of your questions during the first interview. Expect to hear about the next steps if you meet the job requirements.

Why work with us:

At SJE, we believe in empowering our employees to grow professionally while making a real impact. We offer competitive pay, excellent benefits, and a collaborative culture that encourages creativity and problem-solving. Join us and become a part of something bigger. Join a company where you’re not just working—you’re building a legacy!

This employer is required to notify all applicants of their rights pursuant to federal employment laws. For further information, please review the Know Your Rights (https://www.eeoc.gov/poster) notice from the Department of Labor.