Hello again 👋.

Welcome back to the Roles in Manufacturing series where I am giving you an introduction to the different job roles that exist in manufacturing companies.

In the previous parts of the series, I introduced you to the role of the Environment, Health & Safety team in a manufacturing company.

In this part of the series, we will learn what the Plant Manager does in a manufacturing plant and what training or education is required to work as a Plant Manager.

Before we move on, I would like to take a moment to introduce myself to anyone who might be new to the blog.

My name is Ken Bourke and I have worked as an automation professional for almost a decade. During this time, I have worked on large global projects in different industries around the world.

In the last year, I have started producing content online to share my knowledge through free blog posts and free or very reasonably priced courses.

If you get some value out of this post then consider checking out my courses, joining the mailing list using the form at the bottom of this page, or, if you’re feeling very generous, buying me a coffee using the Buy Me a Coffee widget on this page.

With that bit of shameless self-promotion out of the way, let’s get back to talking about the Plant Manager in a manufacturing facility.

Plant Manager

We have already talked about many different roles and teams that you will encounter in a manufacturing plant.

In most plants, all of these teams report to the Plant Manager. This is because the Plant Manager is responsible for the overall plant’s performance including production, delivery schedules, quality, safety, and operating costs.

Since the Plant Manager is responsible for every aspect of the plant, she cares about every Key Performance Indicator that is tracked in the factory.

In general, the Plant Manager is the final decision-maker for a factory. She decides what does and does not happen in a plant and then delegates the execution of projects to different teams.

For enterprise companies with multiple manufacturing sites, the Plant Manager is usually part of the corporate operations team and reports to a Vice President or Director of Operations. This Vice President/Director of Operations is responsible for the operations of multiple plants.

What’s Next?

In my last few posts, I have interested you to the roles and teams that you will encounter in a factory.

In my next posts, I will introduce you to the roles that you may encounter in an Original Equipment manufacturer or OEM. An OEM is a company that builds machines that factories use to run their operations and has a different structure from a typical factory.

If you haven’t already, be sure to sign up to the mailing list below to be notified when that post is published.