Manufacturing Site Leader

Warburtons Limited; Wakefield; On-site; GBP 60,000 - GBP 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A prominent food manufacturer in Wakefield is seeking a Manufacturing Site Leader to drive operational excellence and ensure high standards of quality and safety. The role involves leading the site manufacturing team, managing budgets, and ensuring compliance with HSE and food safety regulations. The ideal candidate will have experience in FMCG management, strong leadership skills, and a commitment to continuous improvement. This position offers excellent benefits, including private medical insurance and a bonus opportunity.

Benefits

Personal bonus opportunity

5 weeks holiday plus bank holidays

Award-winning pension scheme

Private medical insurance

Access to physiotherapy

Qualifications

• Knowledge of legislation relating to a manufacturing/distribution environment.
• Experience of leading manufacturing teams in a fast-paced environment.
• Strong communication skills in articulating and developing relationships.

Responsibilities

• Lead the manufacturing team to deliver customer service targets.
• Ensure compliance with HSE, quality, and food safety requirements.
• Manage budgets and capital expenditures effectively.

Skills

Knowledge and experience of management in an FMCG environment

Knowledge of Lean manufacturing tools & techniques

H&S/Food Safety/food hygiene systems & legislation knowledge

Quality systems & knowledge of HACCP

Time & project management skills

Commercial acumen

Decision making skills

Coaching and mentoring skills

Tools

SAP

Microsoft Office

Job description

Job Title: Manufacturing Site Leader
Location: Tuscany Park, Wakefield
Contract type: Permanent
Salary: Competitive

We are looking for a Site Leader who will drive excellence, empower teams, and shape our future at our site based at Tuscany Park here in Wakefield. This is a fantastic opportunity to take our site to the next level and inspire a world‑class manufacturing culture.

The Recipe

To lead and engage the Manufacturing teams at the site to deliver daily customer service targets with effective resource planning, whilst managing HSE, Quality, Food Safety and cost. To drive a Manufacturing Excellence continuous improvement culture to deliver sustained performance improvements. The role has full responsibility for the site facilities and services across both Manufacturing and Distribution functions.

The Role

Health, Safety and Environment

Lead and engage the manufacturing team to deliver the annual HSE plan and drive the HSE culture change through team engagement, involvement and responsibility for HSE activities.

Ensure control measures are incorporated into Standard Operating Procedures and adequately trained and verified.

Responsible for maintenance and improvements of site infrastructure to meet legal compliance and fit for purpose.

Food Safety

Lead and engage the manufacturing team to ensure that all internal and external food & feed safety standards and requirements are met.

Provide the resources to identify and deliver effective hygiene plans to meet Warburtons standards and legislative requirements with appropriate validation and verification plans in place for new products.

Ensure control measures are incorporated into Standard Operating Procedures and adequately trained and verified.

Quality Performance Delivery

Lead and engage the site manufacturing team to deliver quality and freshness performance targets.

Delivery of product improvement through and the Evidence led quality strategy implementation in collaboration with Centre UBQ team.

Ensure systems are in place to effectively review and investigate consumer quality complaints and action plans for improvement.

Alongside the Centre Technical & Innovation teams provide resources to plan and deliver sku changes and product innovation from trials through to launch.

Fuel Our Future

Provides leadership and direction to the manufacturing Team and is accountable for site performance.

In close collaboration with other functions across the business, leads the site manufacturing team in idea generation and delivery of national and local strategies to deliver the Fuel our Future strategy.

Identify and deliver the site manufacturing revenue and capital budgets and manage revenue expenditure to ensure budget targets are achieved.

Customer Service

Lead the manufacturing team to ensure customer service targets are delivered through a focus on manufacturing reliability, plant resilience, and performance to plan.

Working in collaboration with site Distribution colleagues to eliminate issues and continually improve processes.

People

Lead, motivate, develop and coach the site manufacturing team to ensure they achieve all agreed KPI’s, personal targets and development plans as identified in their role profiles and via performance review meetings.

Manage underperformance promptly through regular reviews and appropriate actions plans.

Lead the site manufacturing team talent process at all levels to ensure that talent is identified, and nurtured and succession plans are in place.

Select and recruit appropriate staff.

Manufacturing Excellence

Lead and engage the site manufacturing team to deliver the MFF strategy and drive a continuous improvement culture to improve plant performance. Provide the resources to identify CI opportunities and promote the lean manufacturing philosophies, tools & techniques working with the Centre Manufacturing Excellence team.

Work collaboratively with other manufacturing teams to identify and share best practice across manufacturing systems and processes, demonstrate the drive to deliver projects OTIF.

Identify and manage the execution of site-based projects.

KPI Delivery

Performance - ensure that all employees are aware of the Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) that they are accountable and responsible for within each of the departments within Operations.

• Knowledge and experience of management in an FMCG environment – in particular, knowledge and experience of Lean manufacturing tools & techniques.
• Knowledge of TPM philosophies desirable.
• Experience or knowledge of working within an ‘Enterprise Leadership’ culture or matrix organisation desirable.
• Knowledge and experience of bread or OWB making processes, plant & technology desirable.
• Knowledge of legislation relating to a manufacturing/distribution environment (including employment law).
• H&S/Food Safety/food hygiene systems & legislation knowledge e.g. COSHH, IOSH.
• Quality systems & knowledge of HACCP – able to ensure the factory’s output meet required quality standards.
• IT and PC knowledge – able to use widespread functions within relevant software (inc Office and SAP).
• Business & market knowledge – uses knowledge of customers/market to improve processes & products.
• Knowledge of auditing processes.
• Knowledge of procedures for dealing with emergencies.
• Communicating skills – articulate/develops effective, long-term relationships with key people.
• Coaching and mentoring skills – takes responsibility for the training and coaching of others.
• Influencing & negotiating skills – maintains attention when speaking to groups of people/negotiates successful deals and purchases/develops persuasive arguments/demonstrates flexibility in influencing style.
• Analysing and problem-solving skills – anticipates problems before they occur and takes steps to deal with them/correctly & swiftly identifies the underlying problem & finds appropriate solutions.
• Time & project management skills – uses project management techniques to create effective plans with milestones/identifies areas of risk & plan contingency/monitors and communicates work & project progress.
• Decision making skills – makes timely decisions/takes account of the wider risks & implications.
• Commercial acumen– uses an understanding of the cost base to improve profitability
• Financial acumen - experience of creating full site budgets.
• Strategic thinking skills – develops strategy and long‑term plans and objectives for the factory/re‑designs processes & ways of working to meet long‑term objectives.
• Management & leadership skills – develops an exciting vision which inspires others to perform/uses a range of management styles/deals effectively with performance issues/creates a sense of trust in the team.
• Innovating skills – identifies improvements to systems and processes and develops a culture within the factory where creativity and innovation are valued and rewarded.

Extra Dough

At last and by no means least you will want to know what your breads worth:

• A personal bonus opportunity and a slice of the annual profits (discretionary profit share)
• Family time is important to us and we know it will be to you, so you will have 5 weeks holiday and bank hols. Plus the opportunity to purchase up to an extra weeks annual leave.
• Award winning pension scheme with company contributions up to 7%
• Private medical insurance, health screening and life assurance
• Products you will love along with deals and discounts for you and the family through our Extra Dough website
• Support for your health and wellbeing, including access to free physiotherapy, 24/7 access to a confidential helpline for practical advice and a comprehensive occupational health service

We respect and value difference. We look to create an inclusive workplace that promotes and values diversity. Companies that are diverse in age, gender identity, race, religion, sexual orientation, physical or mental ability, ethnicity, or any other aspect which makes them unique, are proven to be better companies. More importantly, creating an environment where everyone, from any background, can do their best work, is the right thing to do.