Natural Pod is growing and we need a new Manufacturing Manager to lead some of our most important work supplying sustainably made furniture for kindergartens, preschools and daycares. Help us find a passion person who gets the value of sustainably made furniture for children and who has the manufacturing experience to make Natural Pod even better.
The Manufacturing Manager is a key role. The intent is to partner and collaborate with Natural Pod and it’s suppliers and customers to meet business objectives and help grow the company through successfully managing all aspects of the production, logistics and installation aspects, and to coordinate with the sales and design teams on order fulfillment and product design and development.
As a contract position, this role will be fulfilled primarily from the office premises of the Contractor, with periodic travel to the Company offices, Vendor and Supplier facilities, and customer sites. Ideal candidate would be located in the Vancouver area, with some travel to Vancouver Island required.
Key Focus Areas and Responsibilities
1) Production management (40%)
- Foster positive and progressive relationships and communications with Vendors, Suppliers and customer receiving personnel.
- Expand the base of Vendors and Suppliers through continuous scouting of new potential partners, both within BC and beyond to support NP’s growth.
- Coordinate with the Sales team to organize order fulfillment to ensure timely delivery of products within customer expectations, coordinating inventory and manufacturing of products.
- Provide ‘hands-on’ management at Vendor facilities and at customer sites as required to solve critical supply and manufacturing issues.
- Provide leadership to vendor staff and to part-time NP production support staff at both vendor facilities and on-site to ensure efficiency and quality.
- Maintain a reliable flow of inventory to secure stock on hand as and when required, for both large customer orders and online sales, and implement a re-ordering system to secure stock in a timely manner.
- Champion product specifications to ensure quality control standards are met by suppliers, vendors and installers.
- Manage vendor and supplier prices to secure target product margins.
- Manage production lead times and coordinate with the sales team to ensure order are produced and delivered within customer expectations.
- Collaborate with Vendors to identify and implement production processes and system for continuous improvement of quality and margins.
- Coordinate with the Accounting team to maintain vendor pricing, inventory, accounts and other related financial details in good standing.
2) Logistics (30%)
- Coordinate with the Design Team to develop and implement packing and crating standards for all products.
- Oversee the completion, packing, crating, loading, delivery and unloading of customer orders to customer sites to minimize delivery time, cost and damages.
- Supervise logistics and delivery personnel to maintain high quality handling and loading of completed orders to ensure product quality and completeness of orders.
- Identify key logistics partners and negotiate discounted rate cards to secure favorable transportation and delivery rates.
- Coordinate the arrival of trucks, couriers and delivery contractors at Vendor and customer sites to ensure timely and reliable delivery of all completed orders.
- Manage all logistics paperwork including: customs documents, bills of lading, packing slips, and others as required.
- Aggressively pursue any claims for damages in transport and complete any required claim process to best possible outcome.
- Coordinate with the Accounting team to maintain logistics accounts in good standing
- Coordinate with on-site customer receiving personnel to ensure timely and manageable delivery of orders, including time of day, size of truck, unloading method.
- Coordinate with the Sales team to develop, implement and maintain a direct-to-customer (web sales) shipping system for timely order fulfillment.
3) Order Processing, Fulfillment and Installation (20%)
- Coordinate with the Customer and Sales Team to organize timely delivery, unloading, unpacking, assembly, set-up, clean up and customer sign-off of completed orders.
- Coordinate with the Sales Team – including communicate directly with customers as required – to maintain and fulfill customer expectations of lead-time, delivery status and other related order details.
- Coordinate with the Sales Team to provide on-site customer consultations.
- Source and manage installation contractors in various regions as required.
- Provide leadership and management of on-site set-up staff to ensure product quality and customer experience.
- Manage delivery contractors to ensure prompt fulfillment of product repairs.
- Work directly with the customer to manage and solution order complications including order errors and omissions, defects, shipping damage and product failures.
4) Product Development (10%)
- Coordinate with the Design Team, Vendors and Suppliers to source parts and equipment as required for new product development, product improvement or systems improvement.
- Conduct periodic competitor comparisons with the Sales and Design Team to ensure product price and quality competitiveness
- Provide new product design input and existing product redesign input for continuous improvement in functionality, quality and margin.
Email your cover letter and resume to contact@naturalpod.com
