Head of Manufacturing – Promotional Products

About the Role

We are looking for an experienced Head of Manufacturing / Production Operations leader with experience in the promotional products, custom merchandise, decorated apparel, print, or branded-products industry to lead our growing manufacturing operation in Richmond, Texas.

This is a hands-on leadership role responsible for overseeing day-to-day production, people, workflow, quality, inventory, equipment, and operational performance.

Industry experience is important for this role. We are particularly interested in candidates who have managed production in promotional products, custom apparel, decorated merchandise, commercial printing, signage, embroidery, DTF/DTG, screen printing, heat transfer, or other high-mix, customized production environments.

The ideal candidate is a hands-on operator who understands how to take a high volume of customized orders from production planning through completion while maintaining quality, speed, efficiency, and profitability.

What You'll Do

• Lead day-to-day manufacturing and production operations.
• Manage production schedules, priorities, capacity, staffing, and workflow.
• Oversee teams across production, warehouse, fulfillment, and related functions.
• Establish clear production goals, KPIs, and accountability standards.
• Monitor throughput, turnaround time, quality, labor efficiency, waste, and production costs.
• Identify bottlenecks and continuously improve production workflows.
• Ensure customer orders are completed accurately and on time.
• Manage production priorities when order volume changes or urgent orders arise.
• Coordinate equipment, materials, inventory, and staffing to maintain production flow.
• Work closely with purchasing and supply chain to ensure materials are available when needed.
• Develop and implement SOPs, work instructions, quality standards, and production processes.
• Troubleshoot equipment and production issues and coordinate maintenance or outside support when needed.
• Build a culture of accountability, safety, quality, and continuous improvement.
• Recruit, train, coach, and develop production employees and supervisors.
• Address performance issues through clear expectations, coaching, documentation, and accountability.
• Work cross-functionally with sales, customer service, purchasing, warehouse, and leadership.
• Help scale the operation as the company continues to grow.

Promotional Products / Industry Experience

Experience in one or more of the following environments is strongly preferred:

• Promotional products
• Branded merchandise
• Custom merchandise
• Decorated apparel
• Apparel printing
• DTF / DTG
• Screen printing
• Embroidery
• Heat transfer / heat press
• Commercial or digital printing
• Large-format printing
• Signage
• Custom manufacturing
• Personalized or made-to-order products

You do not need experience with every production method. We are looking for someone who understands the operational challenges of high-volume, customized, deadline-driven production .

What We're Looking For

• 5+ years of experience in manufacturing, production, or operations leadership.
• Experience in promotional products, decorated apparel, printing, custom merchandise, or a closely related industry strongly preferred.
• Experience managing production teams and holding employees accountable for performance.
• Strong understanding of production planning and scheduling.
• Experience tracking and improving operational KPIs.
• Strong problem-solving and root-cause analysis skills.
• Experience managing inventory, materials, equipment, and production capacity.
• Strong quality-control mindset.
• Experience developing or improving SOPs and production processes.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced production environment.
• Strong communication and cross-functional leadership skills.
• Comfortable working hands-on on the production floor.
• Ability to work Monday–Friday, fully on-site in Richmond, TX.

What Success Looks Like

In this role, you will be expected to:

• Improve production throughput and turnaround times.
• Reduce bottlenecks, downtime, rework, and waste.
• Improve production visibility through meaningful KPIs.
• Build a highly accountable production team.
• Ensure materials and capacity are aligned with demand.
• Maintain consistent quality and on-time delivery.
• Build scalable processes that support continued company growth.

Why Join Us?

This is an opportunity to join a growing organization in the promotional products industry and play a key role in building a scalable manufacturing operation.

You will have significant ownership over the production organization and the opportunity to improve people, processes, equipment utilization, quality, and throughput as the business grows.

If you have hands-on leadership experience in promotional products, custom merchandise, decorated apparel, printing, or a similar high-mix production environment, we'd like to hear from you.

Work Location: In person

Pay: $80,000.00 - $120,000.00 per year

Work Location: In person